It Takes a While to Notice
by inkedroses
Summary: Two years into their partnership and after what seemed a lifetime of fighting crime, Ladybug finds herself slowly falling for the selfless gallantry of Chat Noir, while Adrien pines for the intriguing Marinette. (alternatively, where the love square receives a twist)
1. Chapter 1

A/N:This fic functions under the premise that Hawk Moth is a notoriously hard villain to catch (hence the ongoing existence of Akumatized villains), Marinette and Adrien both have reached their seventeenth birthdays, Ladybug and Chat Noir had had two years worth of each other's antics, and both are still dense enough to not recognise each other's identities even after that long. Also, everything that is about to happen is season 2 and 3 didn't happen.

I suppose it might get angsty...?

* * *

They're both seventeen when she finally notices the funny feelings she gets around Chat Noir.

Of the boy himself, very little has changed. The golden mane remains as gold as ever, threaded silver every once in the while when the sun slants just right and the moon touches on shadowed nooks. Though, in the interest of archiving, she figures it is of significant note that it is shorter as compared to before, a little less wild. He's still in habit of raking his hands through his feathery locks however, through the tangles of gold and silver and occasional copper, smiling his cheesy grin.

It is during one of these moments that she starts noticing exactly how attractive the boy is.

There has never really been any question as to how good-looking Chat Noir is (she'd take this secret to the grave, but certainly any boy with eyes that brilliant had to have _some_ measure of attractiveness in his civilian facade), but it was never dwelled on. Of course, sometimes he likes to flaunt it, like in the fiasco with the Evillustrator wherein she had enlist his aid in the form of Marinette and not as her spotted alter ego (though the experience turned out to be far more enjoyable than she expected it be) and he had showed up on her doorstep from the rooftops of Paris, smug and smirking.

But at fifteen, it was childish play; _at fifteen_ her heart was too new in its love for Adrien Agreste to accommodate the idea of making room for any form of competition, which she thought would be an appalling betrayal to the love of her life.

Now, carefully treading on seventeen years of age, two years into her love for the same boy, that heart has also grown to accommodate others, to not selfishly isolate.

And with that she discovers how easy it is to find a fondness for the little black cat, the boy in the mask with the easy smile and the silly puns, loyal to a fault and with a heart of gold underneath the cloak of black leather. He's also in possession of a pair of expressive emerald eyes, pure as though hewn from the jewel itself.

As of now, as though fate meant to prove the point, he's laughing, head thrown back to the skies.

Baton in hand, slick black leather a void in the landscape of colour, he is the paragon of freedom, of life joyfully lived. Soft over the gold and silver, black cat ears perch, twitching ever so slightly in the wind.

Straying towards her, the emerald orbs lock and stay. He raises a gloved fist, familiar smirk already making camp on his lips, and asks,

"Pound it?"

It's a tradition they'd initiated long ago, purely by accident really, when they had forged their first connection. He was smiling back then too, leather gloves curled to hide a cat's tapered claws.

She makes a fist of her own delicate hand, smiles through the sun too bright in her eyes, and meets his knuckle. "Pound it."

When they were younger, he would've taken the proffered hand, slipped his fingers through, brushed his lips against the back in a gentle kiss, eyes gleaming in mischief all the while. Now, it is he who pulls back first, smile as warm as ever.

"I'd say this is the most refreshing victory in quite a while, my Lady. It makes me feel _so_ warm."

"Well, he did freeze half of Paris," she remarks, practiced in the art of wry response to Chat Noir's idea of humour. "So that might be your answer right there."

"Good thing we stopped him. This Chat was starting to get cold feet."

"You never grow up, do you?" She rolls her eyes at him; again, another practiced gesture.

"But _you_ did, and somehow, my puns grew on you along the way." His lips spread into a grin, nice and smooth as cream. "You're laughing, Ladybug."

So she is. She pushes her lips together, forces a smile of pressed lips instead of white teeth. She _had_ gotten used to his puns, found them funny even, but she hadn't yet accustomed herself to the idea.

They hear a beep. Two. She watches Chat's ring while his gaze lingers on her ear.

They look at each other, smile, used to the restriction of power, the limit of time.

Chat bows, elegant as ever, a hand to his heart and a clawed glove swept onto the empty space by his side.

"Till we meet again, lovely Lady," he says, low and dulcet, and not long after, he's gone from her side, leaping rooftops, a figure receding.

Another frantic beep.

She pulls out her yoyo, flings it far, watches it loop around a chimney. When she's sure that the little string will hold, she swings off. Opposite from whence she came. From where Chat took off.

 _Till we meet again,_ and they will, knowing Paris's susceptibility to trouble.

 _Hopefully,_ because secretly her traitorous heart wishes so.

* * *

"Hey girl. Guess who's on the cover. Again."

With a playful roll of her eyes, Alya deposits a magazine onto Marinette's lap. It's glossy front faces up; Adrien's gorgeous smile and smoky gaze take up every inch.

Smiling to herself, she picks up the magazine to inspect the masterpiece of a front cover. It had clearly been one of the more lighthearted of his photoshoots; the carefree smile must have been fished out with a joke, she thinks, a pun maybe. Fondly, she remembers Chat Noir; be it on rooftops or in battle, he always had words to twist, a bad joke to tell.

"Ooh, look at that smile." Grinning, Alya pinches her lightly on the cheek. "Let me be the first person to mourn over the sad fact that you and Adrien are _still_ not a couple."

"Shh, Alya." She presses a finger onto her best friend's lips. "Not so loud!"

Alya rolls her eyes in good nature. "Honey, save the boy himself, I'm sure the world has some idea of your affections for him."

Marinette's shakes her head, laughs. It's partly true. Though not explicitly mentioned, she's sure Alya had told Nino ages ago. Juleka and Rose might have some idea, Ivan and Myléne a growing hunch; Chloé, whom she battles constantly for Adrien's attention, suspicions, if she had not reached the conclusion yet, and Sabrina, too, by extension of being Chloé's best friend and minion. Add to the list Kim and Alix, whom she suspects made bets regarding her and Adrien as often as they made bets on sports.

"But we still don't have to publicise it," she says, laughing awkwardly. He's not in school yet, but that did little to assuage her embarrassment. For some odd reason, she _always_ felt that Adrien is watching her, listening, even though he is in conversation with someone else most times and couldn't _possibly_ be looking at her.

"It's been years, girl! I'd tell you to do something, but then you'd probably mess it up before you even tried."

"Hey!"

Alya roars in laughter. "Just teasing, Marinette. But you can't deny that you always get cold feet before you confess."

Chat's curling lips flicker through her mind's eye. His voice, soft in the wind, making a pun out of the phrase. Again, she smiles.

"That was years ago," she says as the bell rings loud and clear behind them and students file into the door. She grabs her book bag, makes sure nothing resembling a red Kwami is peeking out of her purse, and trails after Alya. "I haven't done any confessing for ages now."

"If you can call those attempts _confessing_ ," Alya teases, but like the best friend she is, she grows serious, somber as she addresses the matter at hand. "But what gives, though? Why did you stop trying? I'm sure you would have been able to one day or another. Why give up?"

"I'm not giving up," says Marinette, smiling softly. "I've never given up on Adrien. I just realised that maybe I shouldn't push matters. Like you said: I mess up everything. So maybe if I didn't try…?" She shakes her head, admitting defeat. "I don't know Alya."

"Maybe it's time you start trying again!" Alya eggs. "You're two years older, and maybe - _just maybe -_ this time you won't trip over your feet. Plus, what if this is the year Adrien gets a girlfriend? You're lucky enough that the boy has been single for the last two years."

She won't lie; the idea of Adrien belonging to someone sends an arrow through her chest. She thinks of his smile, aimed another girl's way; his laugh for a joke that isn't hers.

She shakes the thought away. "Alya, I reallydon't need to think about that."

Alya stops. Marinette finds sympathy in her eyes. "Sorry, Marinette. I didn't mean to go that far." She hugs her friend on the arm, smiling gently at her. "You're right. Let's take it one step at a time."

Marinette nods, shoulders relaxing...

"Hey Marinette! Alya."

...only to have her nerves shoot back up again as she none too wisely whirls on her feet to meet to owner of the voice. It's a little too late that she remembers that although Ladybug is capable at executing everything with grace and flexibility, _Marinette_ has just about the poise of a wooden duck. Rapid movements almost always ended up with tangled feet, and Marinette is helpless but to pitch forwards in a scream, straight into the golden-haired boy's arms, charitably held out to catch her.

"Whoa there." He grins down at her.

With blushing cheeks, she can do nothing but tip her head up and stare. While at fifteen he'd been at a modest height (though still a good half a head taller than her), now he'd reached the measurements of a true model. Towering over everyone at school, it'd be hard pressed to not spot Adrien Agreste, if not by height then the neat, effortlessly styled blond hair that look like frays of gold silk in the light.

"Are we okay?" He helps her to her feet, gentle. His hands hover over her arms, ready to catch should she trip on air again. Close, but not touching. Ever the gentleman.

"Yes, we're not -Uh, I mean no, we are -I mean…" she closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and says, in the most measured tone she can manage. "Yes, I am."

Adrien's eyes flare with the barest mirth. She supposes it's testament to the evolution of their relationship; while in the years previous he would have blinked at her in confusion, now he seems to find amusement in her blunders. There has never been anything particularly malicious in his grin or smile however; it's as though he thought of her mishaps endearing.

"Well, then be careful," he says, retracting his hands. Standing at his shoulder, Nino grins, and discreetly, without the boy next to him noticing, flashes a wink at her.

Distractedly, Adrien glances over her shoulder towards the empty hallway. "I think we better go. We're going to end up late."

Jolted out of her reverie, she whirls to face the hallway, finds him right with some dismay. With nothing short of agitation, she tugs at Alya's arm, drags her over the cold stone floor. The two boys follow too, and the four of them end up bursting into class together like a herd of lost sheep, offering various manners of apology (a vocal one in Alya's case; silent, sheepish grins in that of Marinette's and Adrien's; shuffling feet in Nino's) towards the raised brow of their homeroom teacher.

She finds the magazine in her bag later that night, slightly rumpled and curling at the edges, but fine where Adrien's picture is concerned. Quietly, she laughs.

Alya must have stuffed it into her bag when she wasn't looking.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Wow, thanks a lot for reading, guys. I'm really grateful :)

Anyway, new chapter up. There's more to this, actually, but it seemed to be getting a bit too long (plus I still have to review a few of the details) so with luck, I should be able to post that one tomorrow or the day after. That one should make up for the lack of Adrienette here.

* * *

As always, he stands to greet her when she flies in from the rooftops, soft eyes tracking her form as she lands on her feet, reels in her yoyo.

"Milady," he says, bowing at the waist like a lord in a queen's court.

Frowning, she bats him on the arm as she passes. "I told you, stop doing that."

He unfolds to his full height, all six feet something of solid, toned muscle. Chat Noir had always been slender in adolescence, but a few years is enough to give form to the muscle, to sharpen the lines, sand the rough edges. There's a vast difference in height between them now; it's to her consternation that she only reaches his chin, that he all too easily tucks her into his arms when he has to hoist her out of danger.

"I wouldn't be your Chat Noir if I did," he playfully retorts, twining his fingers behind his head, coming to stand at her side as she gazes towards the rooftops, the civilian life they left behind when their duties bade them to.

"You'll always be Chat Noir."

"I am Chat Noir. I always will be Chat Noir." He grins from the corner of his lips. "But I wouldn't be _your_ Chat Noir. I wouldn't be the partner standing next to you right now, watching over Paris with you."

It's a good thing, she decides, that the mask provides considerable coverage of her face.

She laughs it off, tries to draw into the Ladybug facade, her familiar confidence. "The one with the terrible puns, you mean?"

" _Particularly_ the one with the terrible puns."

She sighs, shakes her head. "What will I do with you, Chat?"

"As you always do, Ladybug. Roll your eyes and crush my heart with a single word." He mimes twisting his fingers over his chest where his heart lies, an expression of agony set upon his handsome features.

It takes considerable effort to keep her expression still, to force the amusement into her eyes when all she feels is guilt, even pain. Chat making light of her rejection to his advances is not meant to be cruel. Quite the contrary, it is a quip to the early stages of their partnership, during which Chat had doled pickup line after pickup line, hoping to cajole a favourable response out of her. Her heart lost to Adrien, she had shut him off, pushed him away as gently and as firmly as she could. Time and time again, he tried; time and time again, she had refused, groaned at his face, took not to heart the things he told her, the eyes that laid bare his soul.

Nowadays, he still flirts, but his lines had lost their juvenile desperation. It has become a thing of regularity between them, something of a bedrock to their relationship: Chat must flirt with his Ladybug, take her hand in battle. Take her place when she stands in the path of danger. Wait in faith as she struggles to concoct a plan, a ploy to pull him out of harm's way.

But beyond that unsaid accord, she wonders if this Chat ( _older, wiser_ ) has had a change of heart. Had decided his pursuance of her nothing but a childish whim, and found a girl more deserving of his affections.

Her heart plummets _._

"Ladybug, watch out!"

Startled, she looks down, finds some sort of vent rushing to meet her, a gaping maw of steel. Quickly, she jerks her arm, flings out her yoyo. It winds around a metal antenna and she _pulls_ , physically drags herself up into the air, landing on the next rooftop on shaky feet.

Silent as a feline, Chat jumps down, straightens, picks his way through snakes of pipes and air vents towards her. Solemnly, he says, "Are you okay?"

She's still a little breathless, checking herself for unseen nicks out of sheer habit. "Yeah, I think so."

"That's not what I meant."

His gentleness makes her look up towards him, find the intelligent emerald eyes behind the black mask that always looked at her and saw too much.

" _Are you okay?_ " he repeats, searching her face with unnerving scrutiny. "You seem out of it. Distracted."

"I'm fine," she insists, gearing her yoyo for another throw.

"We can talk about it," he says quietly, just before she could hurl it into the shadowy corners of the night.

Slowly, she turns to look at him.

He smiles. It's nothing like those of his usual habit; nothing like the half-smirks and self-assured grins. It's just a simple smile that is soft around the edges. Caring for her. Understanding.

The ache blooms a little more intensely in her chest.

"Of course, you don't have to divulge the details." _You don't have to tell me what you don't want me to know._ "But I can always listen. I can help you, if you'd let me."

Even though she knows he has never quite agreed with her decision to keep their identities a secret, it's been this long and he respects her still.

She says, through a smile that hid the pricks of her tears, "Chat, you've always helped me. You've helped me so much, that I don't know how I can thank you. But I'm fine, so you don't have to worry."

They are doubtful, the emerald eyes against a backdrop of a starry night. There is disappointment, too, in their depths, but he nods, smiles anyway, because she imagines that he's come to accept her stubbornness, learnt to let it slide, to not push.

"As you wish, my Lady."

Forcing back every smidge of irrelevant emotion into the box from whence they came, she straightens her shoulders, focuses her sights onto the resplendence of Paris: its Tower in the far distance, edges soft in the light; its winding streets she'd leapt over in nights and scampered across in days.

"Let's get back to business, shall we?"

Chat Noir nods. His baton extends in his grip with an emphatic snap, his dark gloves curling over the curved, silver metal, lethal. She leaps first and he follows, trailing her like a shadow.

Like a cat.

* * *

"Marinette, you look horrible. Don't tell me it's another sleepless night."

Weary, she only manages a smile. Alya studies her, shakes her head in disapproval. As far as she's concerned, Marinette had many late nights; studying algebra, perfecting a her self-titled seasonal line she hopes to one day brandish in her resume. She's oblivious to the wild car chases in the dead AMs, to the tracking of villains across the wild tumbledown playground of Paris' expanse, to the hours following the conclusion of her nightly escapades in which there are aching muscles to tend to, bruises to hide.

"You should really take a break. I'm starting to really pity you."

Together, they walk up the steps, arms hooked together. She leans into Alya's weight, content with her companionship. Alya isn't Chat; she doesn't dangle down helicopters with her or swoop to her aid from impossible heights, but Alya is dependable in a way Chat, restricted by the constraints of his mask, can't be. She can be the rock to which Marinette clings, the music to which she drifts off from troubling thoughts.

She can make her forget about Chat, if only for a while.

She feels the brush of Alya's hair against her cheek as the girl leans into her, grinning at something in the distance. "And there's your Romeo. Late as always."

Laughing, she shakes her head. "I swear, it's been two years and there has never been a week in which the two of you are on time for three days straight. It makes me wonder what _his_ excuse is."

"Photoshoots, maybe." Marinette smiles sleepily, watching him from afar.

Hands on his knees, panting up a storm, Adrien is as immaculately handsome as ever. Looking up, he grins at Nino's quip, slings an arm around his best friend's shoulder as he walks.

"Maybe?" Alya raises a finely plucked brow. "I never thought you'd be unsure about _anything_ when it comes to Adrien's schedule."

Laughing, Marinette tugs at the tips of her orange curls. "I pulled down the 'Adrien Schedule' a year ago, don't you remember?"

"And I thank God everyday that you finally saw reason. I love you Marinette, but pinning that boy's personal agenda to the roof of your bedroom to be pulled down and perused at your leisure is a tad bit creepy, if I were to be honest."

"I was fifteen," she argues, pouting. Ahead, she sees the flick of Chloé's blonde ponytail, the stiff black lines of Alix's cap. "We're allowed to be stupid when we're fifteen. Remember how you used to chase Ladybug across the city?"

"Hey, what're you trying to say about me?" Alya jokes, pinching her on the arm. "And I still do, thank you very much. Am still her number one fan."

To this, Marinette smiles. Sweet Alya, always loyal to her with or without the mask.

"At least you now don't explicitly get yourself into dangerous situations just to get a good shot of Ladybug and Chat Noir in action. I'm sure it's a relief to the both of them, not having to whisk you out of danger all of the time."

She throws back her head in a laugh as Alya makes a swipe at her face. She make for a run, slipping between crowds of students. Ducking through the door, she dances into class, having long left Alya behind. Through the crack, playful insults filter in from the hallway.

She's still laughing when she catches sight of Adrien, stylus in hand and tablet at ready, leaning against an empty palm, smiling as he watches her.

As they lock gazes, the playful, amused smile spreads into one of warmth and welcome.

"Good morning, Marinette," he says softly.

"Uh, good morning to you too," she says, an octave higher than the tone she usually speaks in.

Alya bursts in then, lays eyes on the scene, and in that exact moment decides overlook her revenge in the expense of grinning at them both, stopping only when Marinette snatches her arm and drags her up to their seat.

"Looks like you and your Romeo finally had a moment."

"Alya, he's sitting right below us. _Shush_!"


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: As promised: Chapter 3

(since it's so short I guess I should consider it a part of chapter 2, huh?)

* * *

She ends up dozing off sometime in the library during lunch, having succumbed to the sheer exhaustion.

It's wonderfully tranquil in its musty depths. She had found a desk wedged between two high shelves sometime during her freshman year and had made camp there ever since whenever she went there without company. She likes the solitude of the library, its shuttered windows and seclusion. It offers the escape she desperately wants and miserably needs, and it is in its depths that she sometimes finds herself truly unwinding. She forgets she has a world to save, expectations to meet. Most importantly it gives her room to work on her designs, to twirl her pen and spin ideas in her hands until they're raw.

As of the moment, her sketchbook lies forgotten before her, a listless arm thrown across. The smell of lead and paper push up her nose and settle into her head in a doozy haze, peculiarly calming. The world has all but fallen away; in her dream a scenario plays, familiar in its setting.

The world is sprawled out underneath them, the rooftops and the chimneys and the iron, all spreading from where they perch, an ocean of tumbling boxes. Spearing the horizon, the Tower stands, gorgeous and glorious. Tapered metal push into the folds of the midnight's airy fabric, makes room between the stars and jostles its way underneath the moon.

She hears a voice say to her, "My Lady," and Chat is by her side, absolutely stately in his coat of black, the same colour as his mask, a vest as luminously green as his eyes. His head is bare of a hat; the black cat ears twitch, comfortably perched on a bed of tangled locks.

He's smiling, as always. As he forever will when he bows like a gentleman, offers a hand, asks, "Fancy a dance under the stars, My Lady?"

 _Marinette?_

She frowns. It's distant, the murmur of her name, and it's strange because something isn't right. She catches sight of her arm, halfway raised to take Chat's proffered hand, and notices that it's red, spotted.

She's Ladybug. Not Marinette.

 _Marinette!_

There's a calming edge to that voice. Soft. Low. Chat's tone had been dulcet and smooth. Velvet. This one is muted only because it's quiet, gently urgent.

 _Marinette, wake up._

She blinks awake, bleary eyed. Paris falls at her feet into a fog of mist, taking with it Chat's smile and all its playful edges. His figure blurs, dissolves, an ink blot in a calm pool.

The eyes that greet her as she rises from the viscid depths of sweet unconsciousness is just as intense, and they're concerned.

Her head clears up and she sees to whom they belonged to.

"There we go," Adrien smiles at her, looking mostly amused. "I was afraid you'd fainted or something. You were so deep in sleep!"

"A-Adri-Ahem." Her back is pressed against her chair in startled embarrassment. "Adrien?"

In a squeak she adds, "What are you doing here?"

He inclines his head towards a shelf, or rather, what lies behind it. She recalls noticing a desk there, snuggled in a corner the same way hers is.

Her brows scrunch, partly in mortification to be caught sleeping by _Adrien_ , partly out of disappointment in herself that she hadn't realised he'd been there at all. "All along?"

He laughs, as soft as the dust that settles on age old books. "All along," he confirms. "I spotted you when I was going up and down the aisles for a walk. Needed to stretch my legs out a little."

Sheepishly she asks, "And when was that?"

The look of amusement is back again, settling into his eyes, the corners of his lips. "About two hours ago."

"Two hours?" She yanks up her sleeve, stares in dismay at face of watch. He isn't lying; soon, it will be dark, which means…

"The library's closing," Adrien says, finishing the thought for her. "I was just about to leave, but I thought I'd check up on you. Good thing I did, or you would've been locked up in here till morning." The idea brings mirth to his eyes; they glow like coins, green as leaves in the summer.

She stares at him, not quite clear-headed yet, the haze of sleep brushing like cotton on the spare corners of her mind. Adrien takes in her slack-jawed expression, hedges, "Marinette? We have about five minutes…?"

Everything clicks into place and she jumps into motion.

They hurry down the steps of the school just minutes before the main door closes, the sky growing dark above them. Adrien has on a light hoodie to fend the cold, his book bag swinging freely from a broad shoulder. Marinette barely had time to shove her things into her bag and meet him at the door, which he graciously held open for her, before the lights shut off. The caretaker mutters a few words at them as they pass, impressively displeased, but she catches an edge of a smile from Adrien at his words and decides that it's best to not reply.

Frankly, she's still rather dismayed over the amount of time she let roll by without an ounce productivity to show for it. She'd come to the library for peace, knowing she wouldn't be granted the same luxury elsewhere, to get her designs and whatever bit of procrastinated work done before she's due to come to the aid of the world again. It's too much of a pity that all that time spent came to no fruit.

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself."

Adrien's voice is soft. Somewhat jolting, like a bucket of ice. She whips her head to her side, surprised to find him still there, walking leisurely down the dusky streets.

"You were tired. You _looked_ tired all day. It's just as well you got some rest; everyone needs it, even when they're trying to make ends meet." He shrugs sympathetically at her, as though he understood her woes too well.

In a way, she supposes he does. Between modelling and schoolwork, he must have had his fair share of late nights, of days when he had had to drag his dead weight to where he has to be. Despite that it might not compare to heroic duties, in terms consequential mornings, she suppose it's something they can both relate to.

"There's just too much to be done." She digs fingers into the strap of her bookbag, despondent. "I don't have enough to hands for everything and yet -"

"-they expect you to stretch yourself thin," he murmurs.

Surprised, she glances at him. It came with a breathy cadence, his words, resigned with acceptance; it had sounded like a thought, not quite meant to be said aloud.

As though he, too, realised this, he meets her eyes and rubs a flustered palm to the back of his head. "Sorry. I just get the feeling a lot, you know. With modelling and school and the… modelling." His smile shapes into an awkward square.

"You look tired, too, Adrien," she says softly. "I suppose you didn't get enough hours last night too, huh?"

"No, I didn't." He sighs, adjusts the strap on his shoulder. "I had a…photoshoot that ran really late. Wanna hear a secret?"

She raises a brow in piqued interest.

"I wasn't supposed to be in the library. I was supposed to be in fencing practice." He tilts his head back, rolls his shoulders. "Nathalie is going to kill me. Dad will probably just call me to his room and give me a stern talking to." He shrugs. His laugh sounds rather bitter. "Nothing I'm not used to."

"Is that why you're walking?"

He blinks at her in surprise.

"So you could put off facing them?" she prods on, watching him curiously. "You didn't call your car not because you want a stroll in the streets of Paris, right?"

He stares at her a second longer and then breaks into a grin, barks out a laugh. "You're sharp, Marinette, but you're right, in part. I am trying to put off seeing my father for as long as I can, but honestly? I just wanted to walk you home."

She takes a short moment to gawk at him, to turn his words over in her head for all its possible meanings.

He glances back when he notices her slowing place, tugs his lips into a smile once again at her bewilderment. "I've never walked you home. It's something I'd like to do, if you'd let me."

Flustered and stumbling, she says, "But -uh, I mean thanks, this is strange -I mean -"

He bursts out in laughter. "You're welcome, then."

Not trusting herself to communicate anything coherent, she only smiles awkwardly and resumes her place by his side. Adrien walks lightly, despite the weight of his troubles. It reminds her of a certain Cat's fluid movements; the light steps, the effortless grace. But Adrien's grace had been bred on the runway while Chat honed his on dark rooftops, on the precarious beams of the Eiffel Tower and the heavy bells of Notre Dame.

"I should thank you," she starts, clutching the strap slung over her chest, "for waking me up."

"It's no problem, Marinette. I would do it any day."

At this, her cheeks turn a soft, glowing pink, comfortably warm.

They reach the front of the Dupain-Cheng Bakery not long after, strung with fairy lights and sweet with the scent of sugar and chocolate. She smiles at the sight; it's been a long time since she'd came to the bakery through front door in the night, as opposed to swinging in from roofs into the little trap door above her bed.

"Well, thanks again, Adrien, for walking with me."

"Yeah, no problem."

He's shuffling on his feet. _Nerves_ , she concludes, from having to face his father soon.

"Look, Marinette, I -I should thank you too." The light slips into the corner of his eyes, traces the smile on his lips and runs over his elegant cheekbones. "I probably had rambled my problems on you and you still listened, so thank you."

The wind blows at that point, picks up a lock of her loose dark blue hair, tickles her on the cheek. "It's nothing."

"Marinette?"

Suddenly, he reaches out, catches the errant lock of hair, holds it in his fingers for a fraction longer than he should've before he tucks it behind her ear. Everything about his eyes and smile is soft with tenderness. "Get some sleep tonight, will you?"

Bewildered, cheeks flooded red, she could barely manage, "I will."

With a soft goodbye, Adrien is gone, slipping into the shadows, through the silver light of the moon.

Dumbfounded, her cheek tingling where his fingers brushed, she only stares.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Another new chapter up :). I personally enjoy writing Ladybug and Chat Noir's scenes very much.

* * *

"My Lady?" His voice goes considerably more frantic, albeit soft in a whisper. "Ladybug!"

Through the steel bars of her makeshift cage, the small crack between stone slabs, she sees him prowling. His baton is as long as a sword, his grip on it tight. Dust settles onto his feathery hair and soft ears, kicked up from the rubble at his feet, dropping from the ceiling, the meshwork of metal and plaster.

The warehouse is in shambles.

"I'm here," she whispers, matching his soft voice. The bars are cold to the touch, even through her gloves. They'd missed her by mere inches, ripped from the floors, from beams in the ceilings by the newest Akuma victim, a wronged worker of a steel factory seeking revenge from his boss.

There is a scrape, a shuffle. Rubble shifts, rains dust into the small enclosure. She shirks away, tries not to breathe too much of it in. And then there is a grunt; the large slab of concrete before her moves, is hauled away by curved black claws. Chat's concerned eyes peek between the bars, the light behind him dim, outlining his spare figure.

He rushes forwards, curls the same claws onto the bars, her little prison of steel. "Anything broken? Hurt?"

"Other than my pride?" She smiles thinly.

The concern makes room for fleeting amusement. "So my Lady has developed a bit of Chat in her during her imprisonment."

She flashes him a withering look. "Just get me out, Chat Noir. He's probably already wrecking havoc halfway across Paris. We have to find him before he hurts more people."

She sees a flash of his grin as he bends, runs clawed hands over the ridges, frowns when he reaches the bottom and finds them deeply embedded into the floor. The tops are just as bad, seamed into a meshwork of tough steel, rough in craftsmanship but effectively done.

"I can't bend this even if I use my baton."

Standing, he whips out a gloved hand, curves his fingers into a paw, screams, "Cataclysm!" into the dank, musty space.

Black energy gathers, coalesces into the hand outstretched, like tar, like dark, destructive magic that destroys everything it touches.

He runs the infected hand over the bars, a grim straight line, perfect from years of practice. They wither under his touch, curve, yield to the disease of corrosion, open like wilted flower petals. Calm, he swipes another hand across the bars and they shatter, break apart like a child's toy.

His ring beeps.

"Now you have five minutes," she sighs. She hates it when Chat has to use Cataclysm to save her; she always thought the power is wasted on her.

"Better me than you," he says reassuringly. "Paris needs you to purify the Akuma."

He steps back as she wiggles her way out. They're standing on a ruined floor, cracked beyond repair, jutted with the slivers of steel she and Chat had to dodge earlier to avoid being impaled. With the slab that had trapped her in the darkness moved, she sees a large hole where the wall should be, the blue sky above, clear and deceiving.

"Do you have something with you?" she asks, turning to her partner.

"Rest assured, I always come prepared. I have several chunks of Camembert with me, just in case." He'd divulged to her once, in passing, that his Kwami had a preference for that particular pungent food item.

He gives a quick rap on the stick; it shortens into the length of a baton again, which he carefully attaches to his lower back. "It's not the first time this has happened."

Quickly, he slips between the shadows. She sees a dark form scamper across the broken landscape, shadowed fingers reaching for a steel pole on the walls to scale it.

"Chat?"

He pauses. She feels his emerald gaze on her.

"Yes?"

"Be quick." She smiles tightly, for once letting the desperation in the request show in her eyes. "I'm going to need you."

"My Lady." His voice echoes on the walls, across the wreckage left in their latest villain's wake. "When have I ever failed you?"

His ring beeps again. One minute closer to de-transforming, to losing the mask.

She turns away, breaks into a run towards the sizeable hole. Paris is before her. _Her_ Paris, all it's sprawling beauty. It's a shame that it's so delicate; that it is no stranger to grief, to the devastation of that it holds dear.

Psychic control over metal is the power granted to their latest Akuma victim, and it shows, for everything with even an ounce of metal is bent and twisted and deformed. Plucked off the ground, dragged out of foundations, pulled down from cranes and areas of construction. Cars snatched from the road and parking lots. Knives and scissors and everything in between stolen from shops and homes.

She follows the path of destruction, taking to the skies when the ground got too bad to run on. The way is clear; she hears screams ahead, the angry groan of cars dragged off the asphalt. In a panic, she charges forwards. Her beautiful city is coming to shambles and its Ladybug must be there to protect it.

"Please, Chat Noir, be quick," she whispers, before running smack into the battle scene: a crane right in the middle of town, from which a screaming middle-aged man hangs.

She doesn't hesitate when she tosses her yoyo to the sky, screams over the panic and mayhem and disaster,

"Lucky Charm!"

* * *

"That was a very brave thing that you did, Marinette."

She barely hears Tikki's voice through all the steam. Marinette sighs, sinks lower into the tub. Water against her skin always calmed her, and she needed something calming right now.

Tikki hovers on the edges of the bathtub, her bright blue eyes solemn, her tiny arms and legs splayed in a way that they reached to Marinette to beseech, to comfort.

Marinette sighs. "That's the job of Ladybug, isn't it? To save Paris."

"I'm not talking about that, although it was by many ways admirable," Tikki says quietly. "I'm talking about how you dove in to save Chat, how you shoved him aside before he was crushed between those two trucks."

She laughs a bitter laugh. "Which got him really furious with me. He's right though, Tikki: I could've just given a yell and he'd have jumped out of the way." She stares at her hands, the water running between her fingers. "I don't quite understand it myself, really, why I jumped in and pushed him."

"What were you thinking then, when you did it?" There's no judgement in the little Kwami's voice; just curiosity.

"Nothing." Her voice is deathly quiet. "I wasn't thinking of anything."

Tikki perches herself onto the edge of the bathtub. For something without proper anatomy, Tikki is somehow able to make the best of her fingerless paws to assume a thoughtful pose. "Sometimes, we do things on instinct. You and Chat Noir have been partners for a little over two years; it's only natural for you to want to protect him."

"It still doesn't negate the fact that it was a stupid move." She curls her legs, draws them to her chest. "That Cat had dodged far more lethal obstacles without prompt or thought. One leap up and he was in the clear." She leans back against the tub, sighs. "He's right; I could've gotten myself killed."

Reasonably, Tikki says, "But you didn't."

"I barely got out of the way!" Angry, she splashes the water. "I could've been killed myself, and who's to save Paris then? Who's to protect it?"

"What's done is done. The past is a terrible thing to dwell on."

Groaning, she sinks her head into the water, watches the lights of her bathroom twinkle like stars and Tikki, a red blot in the landscape, hover over the water in concern.

All she can think about is one thing: how she couldn't live if the stupid Cat were to die.

* * *

She arrives at school the next day to find Alya frowning, leaning against the front steps, a boy with an orange cap and stylish headphones with her.

Nino looks up as she gets nearer, shoots her a small, welcoming smile as she makes her way up the steps. His hands are in his pockets, his shoulders hunched; before she'd arrived, he had been speaking with Alya with an expression that is intensely distraught.

"Hey, Nino. Waiting for Adrien?"

At this, Nino's expression falls. Back on the horizon are the troubled clouds, the muted concern. "Adrien's already here, but I think there's something wrong with him. This is the first time he pushed me away."

"Pushed you… away?" Marinette parrots in utter disbelief.

Sweet, benevolent Adrien, pushing someone away? The idea doesn't seem to compute.

Adrien was brought up a lonely child, and because of that he always tries his best to make friends. His kindness is boundless, his concern towards the general well-being of everyone admirably pure. Adrien is the type of boy who makes peace with the world and is loved in return.

"Oh no, don't make it sound so bad!" Nino says, slightly alarmed. "He didn't like _physically_ pushed me away. Just told me he didn't want to be bothered this morning. That he wanted to be alone."

"Trouble with Daddy, you think?" Alya volunteers, raising a judging brow.

Nino shrugs and picks off his cap to absently fix the brim as he thinks. "Who knows? I know how the dude is like ' _absolutely no nonsense whatsoever_ ' but Adrien doesn't really talk about his father that much. It's just bits and pieces you learn to put together once you know him long enough."

She chews her lip. The temperament of Gabriel Agreste isn't news to Marinette, for he is a notoriously cold man, and as Ladybug she'd seen the emptiness of the Agreste Manse, the expansive room Adrien occupies that seems too bleak in its lack of human comfort. To assume a strife between father and son wouldn't really be taking their assumptions a step too far.

"Then we should give him his space," she says quietly. "Everyone needs some alone time."

"That's what I've been doing, Marinette." Nino smiles good-naturedly. "But Adrien's still my best bud. It worries me."

The bell rings and the conversation is brought to a halt. Marinette finds herself trudging in behind Nino and Alya, both of whom already drifting towards other topics of interest -probably Alya's way of distracting Nino from dwelling too much on Adrien's well-being.

And so Marinette is left up to it, to stew over the problem all the way to class. It crosses her mind that Chat Noir might have some idea on what to say; she'd learned in the years of their partnership that the boy had an uncanny way with lost children, with the souls adrift on seas of loneliness. She'd stood witness to it once, when Chat, on his knees, spoke to a little boy with the ravaged, empty eyes, a victim made evil by an Akuma simply because his heart craved love.

"Marinette?" Alya snaps her fingers in front of Marinette's face. "Hey girl. I think it's time to walk now."

Marinette blinks, realises she's been standing by the door, frozen in place as she floats in the memory of Chat's gentle words and dark gloves cradling the boy's head.

"Sorry," she mumbles, sheepish, and leaps up the steps. She doesn't miss the funny look Alya shoots her, nor the half empty table below her, as Nino sidles into his seat and his partner's remains bare.

* * *

When she speaks to Tikki and asks her thoughts regarding the matter (in the girl's bathroom, the door tightly locked), she tells her to let it rest. Her big, blue Kwami eyes hold hers steady as she recites the same thing she herself had told Nino and Alya: that Adrien needed time, that he should be given space.

"It's also not really something you should stick your nose into, Marinette," the little Kwami adds quietly, her little paws clutching on Marinette's little purse. "Family troubles are sensitive issues; confront him about it at the wrong time, and you'll most likely get shouldered away."

"Adrien isn't the type to shoulder anyone away," she argues weakly, pressed against the sink. Her eyes dart to the little window above the stalls ever so often, looks for the pretty blue sky and its wreath of clouds. If only Paris were half as peaceful as it looks.

"He also isn't the type to push his best friend away," Tikki points out. "Maybe he does have his limits. Maybe he does get mad from time to time. The boy is amazing, I agree with you on that Marinette, but he's only human."

"Yeah." She sighs, soft. "I guess that fifteen year old naiveté is something I should shed, huh? I shouldn't believe that a person can be completely perfect."

Chat Noir isn't perfect. He blunders; he stumbles. He brings the most ridiculous puns with him to battle, had let his impulsiveness put him in danger more times than she would've liked. He gets angry; he gets ridiculous. He makes her roll her eyes and scream and pulls her focus away in the most detrimental of times.

But he's a perfect partner; a perfect Chat Noir.

She cups her hand, lifts Tikki out of the purse. Gently, she brings her to her lips and brushes a kiss against Tikki's soft head, giggling as she hums.

"Thanks, Tikki."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Thanks for the support, guys! New chapter up, feature Adrinette and LadyNoir ;)

* * *

In spite of taking Tikki's words to heart, she runs into Adrien anyway when she shuffles into the library and sees him there, shoulders hunched over an individual desk, staring darkly at his tablet.

His eyes travel up at the sound of footsteps, meet her gaze, hold.

She's about to mutter an excuse to leave him be in peace when the somber look cracks, breaks into a small, muted smile of true fondness.

"Hey, Marinette," he whispers softly. It's as silent as a grave here, so his words carried even if it had just been a breath, the gentlest of murmurs.

"Hi, Adrien. Sorry for interrupting, I'll leave you to it." She nods at the book, but Adrien stops her before she can take another step away.

"Wait!" And when she does, he begs, "Stay."

Considering his very significant absence throughout first and second periods, followed by the sullen, withdrawn expression he'd assumed when he finally _did_ join the class, she hadn't expected such a welcome. For a moment, she stands there dumbfounded as Adrien watches her with unwavering eyes; bright and grass-coloured, they seem to convey the plea in the request.

And then his lips twist into a miserable, harsh smile. He twines his fingers, knocks together his knuckles, nothing quite elegant in the movement. "I'm sorry about how I seemed in class. I wasn't in the mood to talk, then."

"And you are now?"

Gently, he says, "Yes."

"We should talk outside," Marinette murmurs urgently, catching the dark looks cast by the librarian from his desk pushed back against the wall.

Obediently, he swipes his tablet off of the desk. In a smooth, easy movement he's on his feet, has pushed in the chair. He strides to where she stands, follows her as she leads him out.

She isn't quite sure what to do, however, once they're safely out of the doors, and only manages to shuffle on her feet as she tries to recall words from the back of her head. A segue. Something.

Thankfully, Adrien spares her the trouble. "I really am sorry, especially to Nino. I didn't mean to act like that. To be so cold to him."

"You should tell him that. He's worried."

A glance his way shows his eyes downcast, his fingers tight over the straps of his book bag, the edges of his lips hard.

She hedges, "Maybe even tell him what's wrong." And then, realising how demanding she might have sounded, adds, "I mean, um, it might make you feel better? I tell Alya my problems all the time," - _barring those pertaining to Ladybug that is;_ she winces a little at the lie -"and they do make me feel better, most times."

Adrien nods. Fire seems to glow in his eyes from the light it traps, reflects. "Nino's a great guy, but there are things that I think even he won't understand."

"You won't know until you try, right?"

He smiles at her, but it seems indulgent at most, polite. Not necessary a testament to his agreement.

"We should move, I think," he says, light and offhanded. "Or find somewhere else where we don't have to stand."

"Ah, we, uh, most definitely should." She smiles tightly over her stupidity. Adrien has a way with blanking out the part of her brain responsible for rationale.

"Could you, um, stick around for a bit?" The request is softly whispered, his ears dusted faint pink. "I guess being alone all day is taking things too far. I sort of miss talking now."

He peeks at her from under his bangs. He seems… shy.

She had never seen Adrien shy before, save for a few instances when she'd met him as Ladybug. But then again, she'd been too busy looking away herself, so she hadn't really been able to tell if there were truly flushed cheeks on his part as there were on hers.

But looking at him now, his eyes truly did seem imploring. He'd twisted his fingers together again, this time behind his back, where she can't see. Like a statue, he towers over her, but does not loom. From this vantage point, it's almost impossible not to notice his jawline; sloping up, it's elegantly and deftly shaped, stretching taut his rather light, unblemished skin. His mouth curves softly; his eyes flicker with odd vulnerability, and everything about him seem an odd mix of a needful little boy and a cool, collected youth. As though he worked hard to be the pride of Gabriel Agreste, but not without picking up a few chinks on the armour along the way.

Suddenly, she feels sad and sorry for him. "Of course, Adrien."

The relief on his face almost brings her pain ( _what would he have looked like if she had said no?)_ and as though grasping desperately at the last chance for a companion to talk with before he had to go home to a lonely, soundless manse, he says, "Dinner? Ice cream? A walk in the park?" His eyes slide to the tight hold she keeps on her book bag. "Or would you rather we find some place to study?"

She _had_ wanted to study, she really did, but she wonders if it's what Adrien wants. He'd basically asked for a friend, for a companion in conversation; with both their heads in a book, there will surely be little words to trade.

She smiles at his hopeful eyes. "Ice cream sounds nice."

* * *

They find a nice corner stall a few blocks away from school, and somehow, ended up wandering halfway across the city clutching two cones. The little fifteen-year-old girl in her is almost entirely freighted by nerves, shrieking, again and again, " _I'm eating ice cream with_ Adrien! _"_

But there is the more sensible part of her brain that filters through Adrien's words, that scrutinises every expression, every hitched breath, looking for confirmation that he is genuinely as fine as he makes himself sound.

The topics he touches are all initially trivial: school, how lucky they were that Chloé didn't grant them the pleasure of her company by being present in their class that year ( _lyceé_ has an entirely different system when it came to the placement of its students; its principal is also suitably resilient to the mayor's threats, besides having a whiplash of comebacks should the phrase ' _Daddy would never agree to this!'_ came about his way); followed by modelling: the amount of changing it entails, the sheer _effort_ required to not doze off in the middle of a shoot ("Fittings are even worse," he'd said through a mouthful of pecan strawberry, "drift off even a little you'll most likely get yourself poked awake by pins"); and then, lastly, he asked of her designs, recalls with a quiet sincerity in her eyes how incredible he found them the few times he saw her work (that _did_ make her blush, as the delight of receiving a model's approval should.)

And then, finally, when they reached the small park near Marinette's home (also one she fondly recalls as the site of various Akuma attacks), he crumples the destroyed tissue in his hands, finds a seat on the fountain, and asks, "How good are you at giving advice, Marinette?"

She hadn't expected the question, so it takes a moment for her to ponder over the answer. Charitably, Adrien pats the space next to him, inviting her to sit.

She sits, then says, "I like to think that I'm reliable enough to dispense fairly decent advice."

Adrien laughs, soft. "I'll take your word for it then." He twiddles his thumbs. "How would you express to someone that you're angry, that you don't agree with what they've done to you, but at the same time you don't want to hurt the person?"

She filters her response carefully before she says it aloud, "It depends on the context of the argument. What ' _don't agree with what they've done_ ' really entails."

Adrien smiles; despite its friendliness, its edges are tight. "I've been having disagreements with my father lately. He does things for me -a lot of things for me -that are well meant, but not what I want. I -" he coughs, stares down, "I love him. Really, I do, but I don't want it to end up as a fight."

And then, much more quietly, he says, "I just need him to understand, Marinette."

She tries to school her expression into a straight one, to not think too much about how Alya and Nino's guesses had been right from the start. Resentment buds in her: for Gabriel Agreste, harsh and unyielding as stone, whom Adrien unconditionally loves regardless.

She smiles apologetically. "I've no choice but to kick this off with a terrible advice: have you tried making him understand _your_ side of the argument? Making him see from your point of view instead of stomaching everything with a tight smile and letting him think he's always in the right?"

Adrien doesn't _explicitly_ tell her that that is a lost cause, that Gabriel Agreste is far too stubborn to listen to a teenager's -even if it is his child's -complaints, but she turns away before she can see his expression, unable to look in him in the eye and see disappointment.

"It's crappy advice, I know." She winces at the ground. "I'm sorry for getting your hopes up. I'll just be honest and say I might not be the best person to help you on this; in my case, I _have_ fought with my parents -some of those rows end up lasting for days -but somehow we'd sit down and talk it out, come to a compromise somehow. I… I understand that might not be the case for you."

"It's not bad advice, Marinette." Adrien brushes her hand, which successfully sends a jolt up her arm. "It's practical. _You_ are practical, so are your parents. I guess I'm just not as lucky."

She looks at him, his morose gaze, set on the far distance, and blurts, "Well he did end up listening to you once, didn't he?"

"I beg your pardon?" Confused, his forehead wrinkles.

"The day you got him to let you go to school." She sucks in a deep breath, knowing she'd have to go on. "Nino told me you disobeyed him, came to class anyway when he said not to. In the end, he did relent after all. I guess what I'm trying to say is," she smiles at him coyly, "you're not _entirely_ powerless to his whim. You had rebelled, and you had won."

Slowly, little by little, the wrinkle between his brows eases, ebbs into lines of amusement. Then, he throws back his head, and laughs.

"Tell me if what I said is not true," she says, leaning forwards, studying the lines of his features, taken in by his infectious laughter. She grins at him, and the look in her eyes must have spoken of more mischief, for he burst out into pent up chuckles again, head tipped to the sky, gold hair spilling down his collar.

"It's true," he gasps, wiping the tears off the corners of his eyes. "Marinette, it's true."

She smiles brightly. "So now you're all cheered up. That's one step towards solving the problem."

He flicks a fleeting look of amusement at her one last time, then leans back, sighs to the sky. "You're right. You know, your advice _is_ good."

Happy, she glances absently at her watch. Upon catching sight of the time though, she leaps up and bumps her bag painfully against her thigh out of sheer clumsiness. Grimacing, shoving away all thoughts on how lovely it would've been to keep Adrien's company a little longer, to hear him laugh and speak to him as a friend without stuttering her way through a sentence as how she'd yearned to do for many years, she flounders through the first excuse that comes to mind.

"I have to go, Adrien. I promised my parents I'll be home to help with the baking."

At the lie, her heart reflexively clenches. But what is there to do, when she can't tell him that she's due to patrol Paris tonight with a certain Black Cat; that she's to meet him at the rooftops, to find him dangling his feet down the edge, watching the lights with anchored stillness. That she's anxious to find if his anger had ebbed, or stayed and stewed for the past few days.

He checks his own watch. To her surprise, the sight of the time got him distracted too. As he stands, he smooths down his slightly rumpled shirt and heaves up his book bag, looking quite in a rush himself to get going.

"Okay. Nathalie probably already has a car waiting for me, probably called me a whole lot of times too." He shrugs and it looks rather impish. "What a coincidence, right? That my battery died just before I left the library."

She shares his uncharacteristically cheeky smirk. "Definitely a coincidence. Bye, Adrien."

"It's great talking to you, Marinette."

He grins at her so widely that she knows little else to do but to smile back.

* * *

Chat is watching the skyline when she flies in, a dark, slender figure in a swatch of shadow, outlined by starlight.

She lands on the rooftop and he doesn't immediately turn. The greeting dies on her lips, and she stands there, silent, observing the relaxed shoulders, the curling mop of gold smudged across a vision of inky black.

"You sure can keep a temper, Kitty Cat," she says finally, when he shows no inclination to turn. It's quiet, her voice, barely carrying. "If you want to skip patrol today, it's okay."

The shoulders go up, then slump in a sigh. Slowly, he turns, lithe, elegant as a feline. "Eluding my duties to accommodate whatever I think is convenient is not the question. It has _never_ been the question."

He jumps down from the ledge. The spilling moonlight brushes the metal caps on his shoes, scored with lines, designed t illusion a cat's paws, and the little stick he keeps at all times is attached to his lower back. It gleams silver, strong and sturdy and yet oddly pliant.

"And you give me too much credit, my Lady." He comes into the light, features silvered, black mask gleaming like lacquered wood. She sees the fine, webbed designs underneath, not unlike her own, a honeycomb of atoms patched together, curving over a sculpted nose bridge, broken apart only by a pair of clear green eyes. "My temper is not quite as everlasting."

Tiredly, he smiles.

"Then you've finally accepted my apology?"

There wasn't much she could do that day, faced with an angry Chat fuming up a storm; little she could say but a 'I'm sorry' as he stands close to her, grasps her by the upper arms, and demands, with green fire blazing in his eyes, what in wretched hell had she been thinking.

He smiles, the gentlest lift of his lips. "I long have, My Lady."

"Can we get on with work then?" No sightings of Akumas, so it should be rather routine. But even the most routine things require time to execute, and though the night is young, it won't get younger.

He dips his head; it's only half of the bow she's used to getting -really, she wonders why the thought even registered. Chat always bows; it had been elaborate and silly when they were both two years younger, sometimes graceful and others misplaced in the current circumstances. It has since evolved into something adopted as a demonstration of a particularly unique brand of camaraderie, a description, compact into a single gesture, of the dynamics of Ladybug and Chat Noir. Two years of practice had produced a fluid performance that belonged on stage instead of a rooftop to an audience of one.

Regardless, how he chooses to execute the bows had always been his decision from the very start. It still doesn't keep her from… noticing the details.

She takes the first leap, looping her yoyo over a nearby tower. She doesn't hear him but she knows he's on her tail, padding behind her on his cat's paws, elongating and shortening his baton when he reaches each roof, each platform suitable for take off.

They circle the city and find little to no activity. Save for a purse snatcher whom Chat tackled to the ground and a lost little girl whom he played with to stop from crying so that they could discern a proper address through her mumblings to know where to send her home, Paris is as peaceful and as close to a safe haven as it can ever be.

As they round the last block and land on the last roof, it's already well past midnight. Chat his head tipped to the stars as she reels in her yoyo, wondering how quietly she would have to go about sneaking in this time, and fretting that her mother might have thought to come up to bring a little midnight snack only to find her daughter gone.

"Great work today, Chat," she says lightly with a smile. "I think it's time we end our shift."

Chat turns to look at her, returning the smile in kind. But as she's twirling her yoyo for a throw to take her home, he grasps her free wrist, asks her, quietly, if she might consent to spare a few more minutes for a word.

"Just a while," he says, as she looks up at him in silent askance. "We're not going to de-transform anytime sooner -I'm sure our Kwamis can hold on a little longer -and this might be only chance where I can speak with you without death threatening at our heels." He smiles at the wry joke.

"Sure, Chat." She tugs her yoyo and it comes back into her palm with all its zipping strings.

He takes a deep breath. "My Lady, I'm sure you've recognised an order to our missions."

"I beg your pardon?"

He's no longer holding her wrist and is threading his fingers together before him, tangling the claws and the black gloves. His expression is grave. "What I mean to say is, there an order of things that we both are aware of. Powers divided between you and me, the difference of the gifts and talents with which we are imbued."

She waits, knowing that he has more to say.

He sighs again; it's obvious that he has a lot to tell her, but the words won't all come. "The Ladybug creates; I, Chat Noir, destroy. In the current circumstances, there's little I could do but bring destruction to anything I touch. Alone, I will only cause devastation, so we can't afford to have anything to happen to you, both Paris and I."

He looks at her then. His eyes gleam in the dark, cat's eyes with bits of starlight. "So you must understand, Ladybug, why you can't get yourself badly hurt, least of all because of an ill-fated Cat like me."

With barely a whisper, she says, "I know."

He smiles at her, and it's so woebegone and gentle that it brings her pain. His _words_ had brought pain, level and pragmatic as they were. Chat understood duty, she knows that well. It's only now that she comes to realise that he might have understood it _better_ than she does, might have spent the last two years contemplating his existence and his place at her side.

"I really am sorry, Chat," she adds, when he doesn't say anything more. "It was stupid, and I should have thought it through."

"My Lady, don't misunderstand." Gently, he places a hand on her shoulder. It's warm, despite the gloves he wears. "I'm _thankful_. I've always been grateful that my Lady thought to think of her Chat."

He laughs when she screws her expression into a wrinkled nose and rolling eyes.

"But you don't have to think too much to save me. This Cat's always been light on his feet. He'll pull through. Worry about yourself, about _Paris,_ and leave the little details to me."

Tilting her head, matching the light playfulness in his eyes, she says, "This is a wonderful speech, Chat, but I have to ask, did you rehearse this beforehand?"

"Any boy would find it hard pressed to speak to a Lady as magnificent and intelligent and overwhelming as you without suitable preparation." He winks. "I grieve for the poor souls whom you've blinded."

"Oh, you and your sweet mouth, Chat," she says, really rolling her eyes at that this point as she aims a gentle shove at his shoulder.

She won't say though, that the relief is strong and palpable. She's never been so glad to have her Chat back, to not have to face another night of missions executed in dead silence, without the bad jokes and the silly puns.

"Cats can be very charming creatures."

"And also ridiculously self-assured," she snorts, but she's laughing, smiling as she takes out her yoyo and twirls it by the string. It forms a stark halo in the night, pink as magic. "Goodbye, Chat. It was a great night."

"The pleasure's all mine, lovely Lady."

This time, he bows a proper bow, complete with the sweeping arm, the hand curled over his heart.

"We'll see each other again soon, I imagine," he says, and she feels his eyes on her as she takes off, leaps into the sky, melts into the night.


	6. Chapter 6

Alya's on her laptop when she meets her one Sunday afternoon, chewing on bubblegum and rapidly running the mouse pointer across the screen. Casually dressed, she has on a sleeveless shirt topped with a purple vest, designer sneakers peeking out the hem of a pair of dark blue jeans.

She barely looks up as she says, "What do you think of the new colour scheme? Less red, more black, or balanced?"

Marinette dumps her purse on the seat and sidles over to look. The Ladyblog, having met with explosive success during its launch, had boomed into something of a phenomenon, complete with it's own call line, a donation box, and even an online store, the brainchild of Alya that involved inducting Marinette as a business partner in the effort of designing and selling Ladybug and Chat Noir related merchandise. Though initially reluctant, Marinette learned quite soon in their partnership that the arrangement has never been a more beneficial venture, for besides being able to publicly showcase her designs, she gets to earn a little more money to buy fabric and material and even a new sewing machine.

"The ' _more black'_ makes it look like a Chat Noir fansite," Marinette remarks with no particular venom.

Alya squints at it and nods. "Yeah, you're right. I'll do a little edit on the accents to make it green, and then apply it to my Chat Noir sideblog."

In the interest of keeping both the heroes of Paris satisfied, Alya had decided to edit her website to include a Chat Noir subsite, wherein she posts what little details she could glean of shadow-clad catboy. It isn't as extensive as her work for the Ladyblog per se, but it has her characteristic professionalism.

Marinette watches her opt for the _balanced_ option and returns to her seat happily. Already set before her is a cup of her favourite hazelnut latte (bless her sweet Alya), so she only needs to reach out to get the sugar fix down her throat.

"Added a squirt of chocolate in there too," Alya tells her, still fixated on her website. "You're welcome."

Marinette hums happily. "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"

Alya grins at her over the keyboard. "All the time. Speaking of persons that you love, Adrien spoke to me about a fireworks show at the Eiffel Tower coming Sunday. He wants me to ask you if you'd come."

She throws her head back in a laugh when Marinette's jaw hangs slightly open. It's not strange to receive invites from Adrien, but he'd never requested _specifically_ for her attendance when he asked them to come for anything. Typically, it would've been a little more open.

"Why didn't he ask me himself?"

Alya tilts her head, her smile nothing short of cunning. "I don't know. Why _didn't_ he ask you himself?"

She pouts sourly at her best friend. "I thought you would've found the answer in Nino."

Alya scoffs. "The boy's lips are sealed tight. He wouldn't even say a _word._ "

"Except maybe to ask you to come too?" Marinette remarks slyly. It's a source of amusement to her to see the fierce Alya pink a little on the cheeks.

"Well, it's not like I have a problem with him asking." Alya waves it off casually, though her fingers did start to fly faster once she's planted them back on the keyboard.

"Of course not. You _know_ he has had a crush on you for quite some time by now. Like maybe two years or so. You should put him out of his misery."

Alya flashes her defeated look. "You know how much the Ladyblog takes of my time. And between school work and managing the orders of our joint venture _and_ helping you make said orders, I don't think I have much time for dating."

 _Neither do I,_ Marinette agrees silently, for Paris would always be in need of Ladybug, and the people of her own little world needs Marinette. It doesn't quite stop her from entertaining the idea though.

"And why are we just discussing Nino? How about we talk about Adrien and his current, budding interest for you." Alya snaps the laptop shut purposefully.

Marinette flushes immediately. "What interest? That's a funny joke. Hahaha…"

The attempt at laughter dies miserably, and Marinette is only left shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

"Oh, really Marinette!" Alya drags her chair close. "Don't think I didn't notice! He's been nicer to you, greeting you every time he sees you. And he seems to have a fixation for everything you do and never seems to take his eyes off of you."

She squirms. "You're reading too much into things, I think," she says weakly.

Had it been two years ago, she would've sung love ballads and leapt to the sky. Now, her heart flutters, but at the same time plummets like stone; beats fast, yet tears itself apart; darkens in shock and lightens in unbearable joy.

"Girl, what is _wrong_ with you? Haven't you even been paying attention? He's interested -"

"Alya," Marinette intervenes, smiling tightly. "Let's not jump into conclusions."

Alya stops. The sheer glee on her face melts, morphs into suspicion. "What _is_ wrong with you, Marinette? Back then, you would've been jumping for joy at the sheer prospect of Adrien even lookingat you."

Marinette forces herself into a tight smile. "I _am_ happy, Alya. But we shouldn't assume things. It would be really embarrassing for Adrien if he found out we thought…"

"Okay." Alya lets go of the hands she'd been clutching. "Who are you and what have you done with my Marinette? Girl, this is _Adrien._ You used to fantasize entire scenarios about going to the movies with that boy before even _inviting_ him."

Truthfully speaking, she wonders it herself. Alya's words ring true; she should've jumped, should've been hysterical with happiness over the very idea. She should've grabbed Alya's hands first and chanted _yes_ a thousand times over when she heard the word ' _Adrien'_ and ' _invited'_ in the same sentence in that particular order.

She finds, instead, a conflicting heart. Half of light and angels, and the other of shadows and elegantly curved claws. Half that sings and other unsure of what is to be done. Half warm to Adrien's gentle smile, the other to a boy with wild, tangled hair slipping atop cat ears, painted rakish with his boyish grin.

She plasters a smile across her face and says, with as much conviction as possible, "I'm excited, Alya, believe me. But I just don't want to get my hopes up, is all."

Alya's frowning, studying her with scrutinizing eyes. Finally, she lets it go, though not without a final, suspicious glance, and Marinette is finally able to pilot her to other pressing matters at hand, such as an unfulfilled shopping spree, and the ticking time that gets them closer to closer to the subway rush hour.

* * *

When she transforms this time, it's merely out of whim than an actual need.

Tikki had been fairly compliant, unresisting as she was drawn into the earrings. The suit moulds comfortably onto her body, the yoyo, strapped to her side in an easy loop, a familiar weight.

Marinette soars across Paris in leaps and bounds, freedom absolute. They don't see, she thinks and is terribly glad for it, the urgency in every jump, the judder she lets vibrate through her when she lands a little too hard. They don't see the set of her jaw and the tightly pursed lips.

She takes a deep breath in and launches her yoyo again. It curls, this time, over the highest point of the Bougeouis Hotel. She pulls, lands on the tiles, grasps the spear of metal for balance. Atop the glass and concrete, she sees her beautiful Paris in motion. There are cars down there, the people she has to protect. Her loves and her family, lost in its labyrinthine maze. They count on her, wait for her: Marinette to make them proud and Ladybug to serve, to do what must be done.

A little farther stands an expansive manse, gated and imposingly tall.

Adrien's mansion.

She pushes her bottom lip between two front teeth and bites. It's jarring, being this unsure over her heart; it makes her scared.

Her sharp eyes spy an opening on the gates, something dark, metal, sliding out like a panther. Adrien's limo takes off westward, and despite her better judgement -even though she knows she's better off sniffing out trouble in alleyways -she follows.

Wearing the suit grants her immediate capabilities in ensuring her survival, which includes equipping her with the skill and dexterity to perform acrobatic feats that are usually fatal when attempted under normal circumstances. Whatever advantage it grants though, it still relies on consistent practice to perfect and improve. Begrudgingly, she deigns to admit that Hawk Moth and his Akumas had played a vital role by providing ample exercises requiring the use of their Miraculouses, and after two years, Ladybug can confidently say she can hop, jump and leap with the speed of a car.

Tracking the one with Adrien barely took any effort at all.

When it finally stops, she reels back her yoyo, slides on her stomach onto the slope of the roof facing the other side, and watches.

It's not hard to spot Adrien, light-haired than most of whom the crew is comprised. There's a photographer, long legged and distracted; a few women hefting large cases of makeup; a rail of clothing shoved as far away from the lights as possible and a makeshift changing room standing a little ways away.

He slides out of the car. A woman takes him by the arm; a well-suited woman, with a tablet and scraped back hair - _Nathalie_. Softly, he bends his head to mutter a word at her. She nods, lets go, and walks away to speak to the photographer.

Slowly, he trudges towards the rail of clothes, whereupon a girl thrusts a complete outfit into his arms and he's shoved inside to change.

She stays and watches the goings on for almost an hour.

Pose after pose they make him do. One outfit after another they make him change into. Orders sometimes come out ludicrous, and Adrien, even with years of experience under his belt, has to stop and ask ( _politely,_ she imagines fondly) what they meant him to do.

Silly as the instructions are, he still does them all, and he does them well.

It isn't the first time she has seen him mid-shoot as Ladybug; she had run into his sessions multiple times, and thankfully, almost always she had been alone. She wonders what Chat would think if he knew she sometimes stayed on rooftops for hours just to watch a boy perfect a pose and carve the perfect smile.

Back then, Chat would've probably been sullen (the boy _does_ have a fragile ego, for all his gusto). She even bets that he would've come up with multiple veiled insults on the position of Adrien's hands and even the slightest tilt of his head. Now, she isn't sure what Chat would do. Tease her, maybe. Come up with a subtle comment that would make himself look better. But he'd probably stand out of the way if she were to announce that she's going to fly down and greet Adrien, lean against the roof, watch. Maybe even laugh softly at her when she fails.

Oddly, the thought makes her miss the jealous Chat.

"Stupid cat," she mutters under her breath, pushing herself off. Quietly, she pads across the roof tiles towards the other side -the side where Adrien, standing below, can't see -and vaults off, all the way back home.

* * *

She doesn't really remember when Chat stopped making his romantic advances on her.

Of course, he didn't really _stop_ flirting entirely; there's still the casual comment, the thoughtless grin and the playful wink. What she means is that she'd long forgotten when he'd stopped trying to sneak a hand over her shoulder or hook an arm around her waist; when he started standing next to her close, but never touched. When he stopped making those stupid comments in the heat of a battle about how they belonged together or how she read his mind perfectly.

All she remembers is that their teamwork grew a little more professional, and Chat grew to develop better judgement. He listens to her, never jumps in too early or too late. He dismantles villains within barely a breath, even overcame his proneness to being thrown off of the combat field by demonstrating an undoubtedly increased skill in balance and footwork. He does get caught, occasionally, but it became easier to save him, to pry him out of control or cages because most of the time, he'd done half the work himself.

Seventeen-year-old Chat is an excellent partner, her equal in all senses. Intelligent and devious and strong.

It's some time around that year that she starts to find the thought of having slight feelings for him not so bad at all.

* * *

The Akuma attack happens sometime in the middle of the week, only a day before her Algebra test.

Alya's Ladyblog screams red alert, the live stream video showing the girl herself wild on its tail. Marinette is on the floor where she dropped her phone, feeling across the wood with shaking fingers. Above and around her, Tikki zips back and forth, wide-eyed with panic.

She finds the phone under her desk, snatches it, and replays the footage of an army of oddly dressed people marching across the main streets.

A body with the head of a donkey climbs atop a red car. A woman in a medieval peasant's dress vaults before the window of a shop, brings down a wooden mallet, and shatters the window to pieces. She comes out not long after with something large and inevitably wooden slung over her shoulder.

"Spots on, Tikki!" Marinette shrieks, hysterical with panic. "Spots on!"

Chat is there when she lands, crouched on the gutter, watching the procession with an incredibly stiff expression. She reaches out and touches him lightly on the shoulder to tell him that she's there, that she's sorry to have made him wait, and his eyes when they turn to her soften.

"I think they're dolls," he tells her, head tilted just slightly. "There's something odd about them, the way they move, all jerky like clockwork. And their clothes too. No self-respecting human being of the twenty first century would think to march in the ermine cloak of some bygone king or the ridiculous head of a donkey.

"They're heading somewhere," he adds, jerking his chin towards where havoc is wrecked; she can't deny though, that despite the chaos, there's an evident flow. "I've kept people off of the streets, evacuated as many as I can. The police are setting up perimeters."

"Beyond that?"

His serious countenance breaks for a while to allow a slight smile. "I've waited for you, my Lady, for doubtless this case requires your boundless wit."

"Not dolls," she murmurs, squinting sharply at their faces. They all have eyes, noses, lips, but no expression. "They're figures. Sculptures. Made of wax."

Chat frowns, the edges of his lips hard. "And where might we find wax figures left casually for anyone's disposal?"

"You don't." She grits her teeth against a loud crash; another glass window brought down. A shimmering rain of glass on the streets. "They usually belong to a wax museum. Want to hazard a guess on what our newest victim's job is?"

She knows that underneath the mask, Chat is lifting a brow at her. "A wronged wax doll maker?"

"No," she murmurs. "I don't think so. The way they're dressed, it's as though they're going to be part of something. A production. A theatre production. And these are not just wax."

A window crashes. They look on, grim, as a mannequin steps out, stiff in its wooden limbs, and joins the procession.

"Mannequins too, huh?" Chat remarks wryly. "This is a unique twist for Hawk Moth. Doesn't he usually grant powers that have something to do with the subject in real life?"

It is strange. She admits that much. "Maybe he just needed henchmen. Stagehands. Everything you need to make a production successful."

"Why didn't he just hypnotise humans then? Like every other Akuma we'd fought in the past."

She chews her lip. "Maybe he needs the humans for something else. Wax and wood and plastic don't speak."

His serious eyes spark with realisation. His mouth turns down, grave. "Actors."

"Clever kitty."

He scowls. "Then they shouldn't be wearing costumes then if they're not going to act. That's just a waste of fabric."

Despite herself, she barks out a hollow laugh. "Maybe he likes flamboyance. Maybe they _are_ going to act but as the extras. Maybe he just needed them to have weapons or something. Oh, I don't know, Chat, nothing makes sense right now."

Chat snaps his baton so its length matches his full height. "Follow the army, my Lady?"

"Our only bet to find him."

She tosses the yoyo. Chat, at her heels, launches himself mid-air with the baton. Together, they follow the battalion of figures trailing across Paris.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Double update guys! :)

* * *

"He's deranged," Chat mutters with a note of incredulity, close to her ear from where they perch on the nearest building.

There's little that Ladybug can do but agree, for indeed their latest Akuma _is_ the paragon of madness. He'd erected a stage before the Eiffel Tower with the help of his minions, a hodge-podge of items, thrown together, seamed by crooked nails. They toil tirelessly, hammer and nail and screw, building the grand stage on which their master stands, proud in a cerulean cloak, buckled boots and a black doublet.

She'd handled various victims in various stages of emotional outbreak before. Heartbreak for a lost love. Grief over injustice. Anger over a desire that would not be fulfilled. But this.

This is a whole new level.

"Hawk Moth has really upped his game," she whispers back. Her fingers are clenched tightly together, and bumping against hers, she feels the same tension in Chat's shoulder.

"I am The Poet!" he declares, and it is then Marinette sees the pen held aloft before a dark blue book, blackened with corruption. "And my plays shall no longer be in the shadows. It will see light; it will be acted on a grand stage by those of my choosing."

They hear shouts, screaming. They turn their heads to find men dragged onto the square by their arms, women struggling, children weeping into trembling hands.

The actors for his stage.

With a maniac's eyes, The Poet bends his head and begins to furiously write. Ladybug feels a shudder in her as the words flow on the paper, as a woman screams, and a man stumbles onto a stage as though yanked. The sculptures and mannequins watch, deathly pale. Eerie and cruel.

"I introduce my Bernard and his Lucia!" The Poet declares with a flourish of a man going savage with glee. "Who shall act upon this stage tonight a play of my own hand."

"We have to go in!" she yells. "Get them off the stage, Chat Noir. Let me have The Poet."

They waste no time to leap.

Chat is quick, with a clean swipe he sweeps the figures out of his way. They come at him, an entire army of lifeless eyes, abandoning their charges, the humans their master meant to make actors of, leaving them to scatter. Chat's jaw is set, his eyes burning with green fire. Boldly, if a little brashly, he takes on the army, fights them with his stick, shoves them back before they can get too close.

She sees it all from the corners of her eyes as she swings her yoyo, loops the string around the Poet's wrist, and yanks it away from the blue book's open page.

"Run!" she gasps to man and woman, feet dug into the wood, desperately grappling for purchase.

They look at her with deathly terrified eyes. "We can't move!"

Gritting her teeth, she yanks the string harder. The Poet howls and his pen falls. Still, the actors remain frozen.

He snarls, "They cannot move until I finish the story."

Suddenly, the string jerks. Marinette tumbles down, eyes wide with surprise. She recovers quickly only to find that he'd bounded across the stage and retrieved the pen. The man and woman's eyes reflect only anguish as words pour from their lips into lines they never meant to say, their bodies moving into gestures that don't belong.

"Chat Noir, the pen!" she yells, charging forwards and finding her way blocked by a team of his lifeless henchmen. These are dressed as men of the army, albeit those portrayed in the plays depicting ancient Chinese dynastic rule. "It's in there."

"I'm a bit busy!" came a breathless reply below the stage, where he stands, ragged, stick held before him like a sword. "I've been challenged to a duel. Or a quintuple, or whatever the hell you call it when you have to cross blades with five people at once."

She mutters an oath under her breath, fixes her eyes on The Poet again, the scribbled words he forces his actors to act and say.

Abruptly, he stops.

A purple outline appears before his eyes, cutting sharp corners like butterfly wings, a wraith of a mask. His face seems to redden; his eyes turn glassy, terrified. The hand that holds the pen shakes and she hears him scream, "All right! All right! I'll get the Miraculouses for you."

His eyes find her, flare in hatred underneath his dark hair. He jerks an impatient chin to the soldiers cornering her, one hand fisted, the other digging nails into the precious book he holds.

Ladybug takes a deep breath and proceeds to smash the yoyo over the figures' heads. Swords aim at her heart, a coiling piece of rope brought out. Light on her feet, she jumps over their helmets, uses their momentum to make the crash into each other. A spear tip comes merely inches to her head. She ducks, snatches the rope, and, racing under legs and arms, coils it around limbs and chests. She tops it off with a quick knot.

"Chat Noir, are you okay?" she screams, eyes darting out and about for The Poet, who had escaped in the midst of the brawl.

She hears the sound of a swipe, clean as metal cutting air, before a black blur springs from the beneath the stage and lands on light feet beside her. A rapier gleams against Chat's black claws, long and thin with a hilt as gold as his hair. He brandishes it out, silver and deadly, with the fluidity of a master swordsman.

She spares a minute to cast him a curious, sidelong glance.

"Where is he?" Chat barks, then, upon seeing the look on her face, says, in a less of a heated tone, "What?"

"I've never seen you abandon your stick for another weapon."

"Well, in normal circumstances, I'd be fighting flesh and blood. These aren't even supposed to be alive, so I don't see the harm in hacking them to pieces. Plus, this sword cuts through everything _marvelously._ "

She shakes her head, forces herself to refocus. "He escaped through the crowd while these _things,_ " -she aims a wild swing at an advancing knave vengefully -"made an attempt at my Miraculous."

"How far do you think he has gone?"

Ladybug shakes her head. "I don't think he's gone anywhere at all because they're all still here trying to - _Chat, watch out!_ "

Seconds before the fake willow (a prop of the stage) crashes down, she tackles Chat away. The force of it leaves them both gasping; Chat's heaving chest is warm under her fingers, his heart rapidly beating from the adrenaline. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and drags them back before an errant sword is brought down where they had lain.

Baring his teeth, he pulls her behind him and meets the next blow with his own.

"The man and the woman," Ladybug gasps, just remembering the two civilians stuck in the midst of a battle between good and evil. "We have to protect them."

Chat is crossing blades with the ermine-cloaked king, his parries and thrusts like a dance. In his element, he's elegant - _could've been a knight_ , she thinks, judging by the ease with which he handles the sword. He just manages to gasp out, "They brought a cage!" before having to drag his focus back to the duel again.

She whirls, finds it. For some odd reason, the figures had wheeled a cage onto their master's grand makeshift stage, possibly for a future scene that had yet to be written.

A plan pieces together in her head and she leaves Chat to battle his newest foe, nimbly jumping onto the stage. It's chaos; what is left of the army immediately leap for her. She ducks, spins, and kicks them off. Standing in the middle of the grim foray are the two victims of The Poet's play. She doesn't think twice as she slings them both over her shoulders (still frozen in their halted scene), skids over towards the cage, stumbles in, and tries to put them down as gently as possible.

"You'll be safe in here," she says, closing the door and turning the key. "It's metal, so it won't tip aside. If you stay in the middle, then it should be fine."

Metal clashes close to her ear. She senses Chat behind her, having prevailed over his previous foe, protecting her back as she protects the civilians.

She slides the key between the bars.

"Unlock it once all this is over."

"Ladybug!" Chat's growl carries over the ring of sharp metal. "We can't hold out like this any longer. _Find him_. I'll cover for you."

His desperation is as clear as his fury over their latest Akuma. Without a second thought, she leaps onto the cage, stands, and scans through the mayhem.

She sees him at the edges, red-faced, screaming orders to his mindless army, pen and book a blur as he angrily flails at them. More come. She spots some that look stranger than the rest: cavemen of dark ages and tanned ladies in tribal wear. Dread pools in her chest when she realises that he'd summoned backup in the form all the sculptures and mannequins available in Paris.

"I see him." She looks down towards her frenetic partner, noticing his pallid complexion, the exhaustion that has begun to settle on his arms and shoulders. "Chat, there are more coming; you won't be able to fight them all at once."

"Then, I'll only fight those that get in your way." With a feral snarl, he slices his sword across a soldier, stills only briefly to watch it crumple, and pushes himself off to alight beside her.

They share a look. He nods.

Taking a deep breath, she tips her head to the sky and screams, "Lucky Charm!"

She yelps a little when she realises the items the Charm had summoned. She crashes against Chat and yanks him away, too, before they both could be impaled.

" _Knives_?" she gawks, because surely there they are, lying atop the metal cage; two short, ladybug-patterned blades that looked just as sharp as Chat's sword. "I've never gotten _knives_ before."

"Not just knives," Chat says, studying the items at their feet, the short, elegantly curved blades. "Throwing knives."

The cage shakes. Startled, they find that the wax figures and a few mannequins had begun to climb. Chat draws out his sword again and slashes at the hands that had gotten grasp of the top; she smashes the rest with her yoyo.

"How good is your aim, Milady?"

She smirks, confident. "Pretty damn good."

With an easy flick of the wrist, one sails across the square, embeds itself into The Poet's trailing cloak. He doesn't notice. It's a good thing too that he's standing on the grassy portion of the square, and that the soil is soft and accommodating.

"I only need one, I think," she mutters, tucking the other away for safekeeping. "Chat, leave them. Come on!"

She leaps off the cage, uses the heads as stepping stones. Quick as a ladybug, she bolts towards The Poet, bends her knees, launches herself in an impressive leap that take her over his head where his hand holds the Akuma-infected pen up high. Smoothly, she snatches it, lands, and snaps it cleanly apart in two.

She smirks as she watches him roar and thrash, trying to come after her, failing because she'd pinned his cloak to the ground.

She waits, but no butterfly comes fluttering out.

His laughter chills her to the bone.

"Oh, valiant Ladybug. Do really think it to be that easy?" he taunts. Oh, how dark are his eyes, how vicious from the influence.

 _The book_ , she realises with a start. But just as the thought comes to her, something silver sails across the air and smacks against The Poet's other hand. He cries out in pain, the book flung out far. She wastes no time to launch herself at the book, draw the second knife, hold it over its dark, swirling cover.

"Wait!"

She looks up, eyes hard. "It's over, Mr -"

Slowly, her mouth goes dry.

His smile is sharp and terrible. "We really don't want to do that, do we?"

His foot is planted over Chat's silver baton, it's glowing green paw print facing up, pulsing against the dull silver. But her eyes… her eyes are not so much on the baton as it is on its owner, across them both, too far from where she kneels, on his knees with a sword on his throat.

It's his sword, she recognises, wrenched from his hand, hilt the same gold as his matted hair. Two other figures have his wrists in bruising grips, tight as iron. His head is yanked back, the king's waxen fingers clutching tight on the tangled hair, his throat exposed. The blade presses against the slender column like a kiss.

"Destroy my book and you'll watch your Tomcat die." Just a touch on The Poet's lips, the triumphant, curling smirk. "My minions are wax and wood, but they are fast. I'll have him run the blade across your dear Chat's throat before you could even bring that knife down over my book."

Through the craze, she hears a beep, quick and frantic.

 _Three minutes,_ she thinks with dismay, knowing she has to act, but unable to keep her eyes of Chat. The blade pressed against the white skin of his slender throat. His eyes are dark despite their vivid green, staring at her.

She hears their silent scream: _Do it. Plunge the knife. Free the Akuma._

 _But there's blood running down his collar, a thin line where the blade presses..._

"The knife, Ladybug," The Poet reminds her, his voice low and threatening. "Put it down."

She bows her head. Another beep: _less than two minutes._ Slowly, she lowers the knife.

The Poet relaxes, grinning in triumph.

She steels herself, eyes passionate with rage, and as swift as lightning had flung the knife across the courtyard. It buries itself into the king's forehead, snapping its head back, making it release its grip, letting the metal clatter.

It's at that moment she notices the fog of dark energy swirling about Chat's gloves, dancing around his hand, black as the plague. With an ardent jerk, he wrenches down the second figure's hand, buries his claws into its abdomen, then, fluid, he twirls, catching the third figure as the second melts at his feet, goes again to the king to sink Cataclysm deep into its chest just as it's about to rise again.

The Poet's yell bear storms of outrage.

Ladybug darts forward towards the forgotten sword, seizes it by the hilt, spears the book by the tip while her earrings whine in an urgent, desperate beep.

The butterfly flies out of its prison of pages.

She draws out her yoyo, swings, catches and purifies it in less than a heartbeat.

As it flies away, she sinks to her knees, heart beating fast. There's the last, terribly frantic beep as her Miraculous warns of the transformation that is about to fade away.

She closes her eyes, helpless, knowing that there's no time to run, to hide…

And then something dark and heavy descends on her, musty, velveteen: the fake, ermine cloak of the wax king. She recognises it from the trim. Just as the fabric settles, Ladybug's sleek suit of red and black dissipates, dissolving into the plain clothes of Marinette.

She just barely manages to catch the weak Tikki in her cupped palms before her Kwami falls to the ground.

"Chat?" she whispers quietly, staring at the blackness, knowing that his eyes lie somewhere on the other side.

"I didn't see. No one saw." His voice comes from just a little to right, above her. There's something rough about his tone, something like barely suppressed rage.

"Chat, is everything okay out there?" she whispers. She looks down and finds her hands clenched and shaking.

"The Akuma's purified," he says, curt and cutting. "The man transformed back to what he once was, his victims freed and working on the lock as we speak. But the damage remains, along with veritable pilesof melting wax and broken wooden limbs."

She bites her lip. She hadn't had time to use Miraculous Ladybug to right the damage and return Paris to its peace. Now, de-transformed, she can do nothing. Tikki's conscious -she knows from the slight movements on her hands, soft as butterfly wings -but for some reason, she said nothing.

And then, harsh as the blade that had been held over his throat, that she had plunged into the evil black book, Chat Noir says, "You shouldn't have thrown that knife."

"Chat…"She didn't know what to say, so she lets the sentence trail, knows that, on the other side of the ermine cloak, Chat is seething in silence.

An insistent beep filters in from the outside, muted by the fabric.

"I have to go," Chat says, gruff. She hears him step away. Towards his discarded baton, she thinks, to grab it.

"Chat, are you still bleeding?" she calls. It sounds desperate even to her ears, grey with anguish.

He's silent for a while, then she hears the clatter of something dropped, two, both metal. From the edge of cloak she makes out the hilt of the two throwing knives, the objects Lucky Charm had borne her.

"Does it matter?" he mutters, cold, before she hears the smooth snap of his baton extending, vaulting him away to the shadows, to the safety of rooftops and alleyways to slough off the transformation.

She presses her hand to her lips, the tears hot against her cheeks.

"Marinette." Tikki's soft voice filters into her ears, gentle as a lullaby, sweet as the cookies she so loves. "We have to leave now, Marinette. I need to gain my strength to turn you back so you could use Miraculous Ladybug and turn everything back to normal again. Oh, Marinette please, please don't cry…"

She wipes away her tears, stifles down her sobs. Tikki's small paws are warm, catching her tears, drying them.

"Yes, you're right, Tikki," she whispers, pressing a kiss to her head. Tucking the Kwami into her purse, she gathers the ermine cloak about her and shakily stands.

Chat Noir is right; the wreckage is still there. Guiltily, she bows her head, pulls the cloak higher so it hides her face. The two spotted knives lie close to her feet; she bends and quickly picks them up to hide them away under thick folds of fabric.

The metal is cold against her skin as she grips them both to her chest, one hand still holding the cloak tight to conceal her figure.

Quietly, she slinks away, trying not to think about the disappointment in Chat's voice -and how it must haveshowed in his eyes had she been able to see through the fabric.

* * *

The night is cold and blustery when she lands on the surface of flat concrete, speckled above with muted stars. Once again, she stands on the familiar scene of many nights, the ocean of roofs and buildings unfurling before her, glass windows warm and lit. Everything is peaceful now, Paris restored.

One cookie hadn't been enough to cure Tikki's exhaustion, but her little Kwami had assured her that she'll be able to hold on a little longer. It was brief, the transformation, the spotted knives cold against her fingers as she flings them up, up towards the darkened sky, the frothing clouds.

He stands at the edge again, moonlight outlining his spare figure. The leather of his suit curves into built shoulders, into lines of lithe muscle. He just stands there, still as a statue, a guardian in the shadows.

It's been a full day since she last saw Chat Noir after vanquishing their arguably most difficult Akuma yet, and honestly, after his dramatic exit, she had only half expected him to show up today: one of the three days of the week officially slated for patrol.

But then her thoughts drift towards Chat's words the other day, how he would never walk away from his duties, and she realises that she shouldn't have doubted him after all.

" _Bonjour,_ Kitten," she murmurs softly, knowing that the wind will carry it.

His shoulders rise, go stiff.

"Don't call me that." Slowly, he turns, his eyes darkened by shadows. "Not when I'm still angry at you."

Her eyes lock on the strip of gauzy cotton, just above his collar. "Your throat…"

"Will be fine. Plagg is helping me heal it every time I transform. It's just a nick, anyway. Nothing major."

And then, walking swiftly, he crosses the space between them. Closer, she sees the light slant on his jaw, chase its sharp lines. It's clenched tight.

"You know what I'm going to say, Ladybug: you shouldn't have wasted that knife on me. You should've destroyed the book instead and purified the Akuma before it could go on any longer."

"Chat, it had a sword to your throat," she says in a low voice, aware of the welling emotion underneath. "I had to do _something._ "

He grits his teeth. "I already had a plan to escape. I invoked Cataclysm before they caught me; I was just waiting for the right moment to use it."

"How was I supposed to know that you did!" she cries. Surprise flickers over Chat's eyes, and he steps back. "You were _bleeding_ Chat. How could I have driven the knife in the book when the doll is about to drive a sword into _you?_ "

"You could've made yourself think sensibly," he snaps, sharp. "My Ladybug would've reasoned that they're plastic and wax and wood, that they don't feel. That aiming a knife straight to their heads would've done no good in making them drop the sword."

"But it did drop the sword." She furious now, clenching her teeth.

"By chance."

"For God's sake, Chat, I _saved_ you -"

"Which I told you not to do!" His whole body is tense, his eyes hard as diamonds. Moonlight pools on his hair, touches on hidden strands, turns him into a gold and black blazing flame. "I _told_ you, Ladybug. Paris needs you more than I -Paris comes _first_ before a miserable black cat. Chat Noir's duty is to protect Ladybug, to keep her safe until she can figure out a plan to save everyone else."

"So you're saying I don't have the right to do what I can to save you?" she snaps. "We're equals. Ladybug can't be without Chat Noir."

"Paris can't be without Ladybug," he growls. In a feverish haze, he runs his fingers through his hair, flattens down the cat ears, rakes a trail of disorder. "Only _you_ can purify the Akumas. Only _you_ can set everything to right, to what it has once been."

"I can't just watch you _die_!" Steaming, she starts pacing as she yells. "You are my best friend, my partner. Telling me to not care about you is a cruel and an unfair request. I don't get to protect you but get to throw yourself in danger for _me_? Chat Noir listen to yourself."

He draws in a deep, ragged breath. "My life is nothing compared to the rest of Paris -"

"Your life is everything to me!"

Just like that, they pause, stand across each other, both breathing hard. The silence is a whiplash, cleaving across bone. She's close to crying, her eyes too warm, but she stares Chat down, the boy she'd known for years now, whom she had trusted with her life from the very first time they'd met.

"As yours is to me," he says, soft and sad, his eyes devoid of their heat. "My heart used to exist entirely for you."

She can't find the words to say to that, so she just stands there and stares.

"It isn't easy to make love fade. To tell yourself every day that the girl you love will never love you back because she has too many great things waiting for her." He smiles, bleak. "But it still brings me pain if anything were to happen to you, so I hope you can understand, my Lady, why I object so thoroughly to the idea of you risking your life for anything. For me."

Her throat is dry as she listens to him speak.

His smile grows kind, curling at the edges in a way she realises that she had always loved. "Are those tears, my Lady? I'm honoured, as I never thought you'd waste any on this mangy alley cat."

"You stupid cat," she gasps as more tears come. Underneath, her heart breaks, shatters to tiny little pieces.

 _He used to love me, but he forced himself to let go._

"I suppose we've both had enough of this screaming," he says, closing the gap. Gently, he gathers her in his arms, tucks her under his chin. His large hands cradle her head tenderly, brush soothingly against her hair. "I think from this we can come an agreement that we're both equally as important to each other."

He pulls away and gazes down at her with his cat-green eyes and boyish smile. "Partners forever?"

She chokes back her tears long enough to say, "Partners forever."

The smile quickly morphs into a more familiar grin that bespeaks of his swaggering pride. "Now to make it official."

He lets go, steps back. In the dark night under a sky full of stars, Chat Noir raises his fist, tilts his head slightly so the stars catch the glimmer in his eyes, the soft edges of his widening grin.

Patiently, he waits.

She smiles at him, gentle and genuine, and raises her fist, connects it to his. Softly, their voices spiral together through the fragile silence, into a catchline repeated a thousand times over through irreplaceable years of partnership: "Pound it."

If possible, the grin widens even more, and before she could blink he's already swinging his stick, slinging it over his shoulders, wild and electrified.

"Shall we, my Lady? I think we've made Paris wait for its grieving heroes long enough."

She smiles lightly, draws out her yoyo in response. Chat winks at her, bending his knees, ready to vault.

He lets her go first, as always, which is a good thing, because it gives her time to let her lips tremble without him seeing, to let her heart break a little more without him asking why.

* * *

A/N: _Because he needed henchmen…_

I swear, Akumatized villains are a _bane_ to create. But this chapter is my favourite nonetheless.

So far.


	8. Chapter 8

Marinette's depression carries for a little over two days, and even the best of Alya's efforts can't get her to unveil the reason why. She can tell that Alya's dissatisfied: her lips always purse after a failed attempt and she can sense the questioning glances the girl keeps flashing at her.

Nevertheless, after the fifth attempt and Marinette's lips still remained tightly sealed, Alya gives up trying to glean a reason and redirects her attempts to that of cajoling a smile instead.

Adrien has been absent for the remainder of the week, the reason, according to Nino when he'd been grilled by Alya, is that he had come up with a terrible fever. Marinette's concern somehow manages to reach through her grief to extract the appropriate questions in regards to his condition.

Nino only laughs lightly when faced with the assault, telling her, "He'll be fine, Marinette. Says he'll be back next week. I'm bringing his work around after school every day he's absent, so I'll be able to check up on him for you, if you like."

Though to be honest, a little of part of her is relieved that Adrien isn't here to see her wallow in her grief while Alya fusses over her like a mother hen.

Her concern is something Marinette deeply appreciates, and, for the sake of pleasing her dear friend, she does try to attempt a smile or two, laugh at a deliberate joke. But when Alya ropes in Nino into the not-so-covert operation of coaxing Marinette out of her depression, she can tell that her best friend is wholly unconvinced.

But there's nothing she could tell, short of citing a broken, devastated heart.

She can't explain that; even after hours of practice in front of the mirror, after consulting Tikki, she doesn't think she can explain to Alya how deeply she's grown to love Chat. How she has just realised that she hadn't just loved him, but has been _in love_ with him for a length of time, the beginning of which she had no idea when.

Maybe it began with a smile, a soft laugh, a gentle jostle. Maybe it was when they flew and fell, when they reeled and sprung and Paris was always at their feet, waiting to catch them. Maybe it was when she began to recognise precisely the colour of Chat's eyes, map the shadows and trace the emotions, the joy and affection and courage and sorrow.

Truth be told, even phrasing the notion of being in love with someone besides Adrien to Alya is giving her a headache, much less when the person in question is Chat Noir, one-half of the superhero duo standing guard over Paris to keep it from falling into the hands of peril.

So, it's Tikki to whom she pours the entire contents of her heart out.

"Poor Marinette," her little Kwami manages to say, stroking her cheek as she wept into her arms, soaking the sleeves of her shirt with the salt of her tears.

It's long past school, the sun has slanted in her window, and her parents had closed up shop and gone out for dinner, convinced of the jovial facade she'd managed to pull throughout morning and evening. Now, she thinks with some relief, she can cry in peace.

"I'm sorry that there's nothing I can do."

"It's not your fault, Tikki," she says, taking the tissue hovering before her in tiny paws. "It's mine. It's always been mine."

Tikki's is silent. She chews her tiny lip, expression screwed into genuine concern. "Don't blame yourself, Marinette. You didn't know."

"That's the thing, Tikki," she says, softly, blowing her nose. "I did know, somewhere in my heart. I knew Chat's pick up lines weren't just jests. I knew there was something to it when he took my hand to kiss it, but I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to see anyone but Adrien."

She throws her hands out and laughs bitterly to the ceiling. "What has that gotten me? Two years worth of a pathetic crush that had barely moved an inch since middle school."

"That's not true." Tikki floats nearer so she's closer to her face, and Marinette has no choice but to look into her blue Kwami eyes. "There is progress. You talk to Adrien now. You're more than just friends. I think he really cares about you. "

"Really, Tikki," she sighs, slumping. "Now you're just repeating what Alya said."

"I'm just stating what I saw." Tikki shrugs, lands gracefully over her monitor to sit. "Alya has solid points, actually. You shouldn't refute them so easily."

"Adrien!" She throws her hands up in defeat, in true anguish. "I used to call him my prince, you know. Gorgeous and faraway. And it would've stayed that way if that stupid Chat Noir hadn't waltzed in and called himself my knight."

"Don't say that," Tikki chides gently. "You said it yourself: Chat Noir is your other half. Ladybug can't exist without him."

"He says he doesn't love Ladybug anymore." On her lap, her fingers twist, joints knotted together. "I should've expected it because I had never given him the time of day."

"He loves you." Tikki grabs both her hands, quick to reassure. "He loves you just as you loved him before. He cares _deeply_ for you, Marinette. Never make the mistake of forgetting that."

 _Just like how you love a best friend_ , she thinks, and is just about to say when there's a tap, soft, barely there that she had to swivel her head around to listen.

 _Tap_. _Tap._

She looks up. It came from the roof.

She exchanges a glance with Tikki. "Who could it be?"

"Can't hurt to find out."

 _Tap._

Somehow, Marinette chokes out a raw laugh. "You do know the amount of times that statement has gotten me into trouble, don't you?"

Despite her teasing, she gets up anyway, walks across the room, and turns on the tap on the sink. The mirror above shows a pallid girl, cheeks and eyes red. She tries to scrub away as much of the glazed misery as she can and had just barely achieved 'presentable' when the fourth, fifth, and sixth taps drum from above.

"I hope I don't look like something from a horror movie," she mutters as she ascends the ladder to her bed.

"You look fine Marinette," Tikki calls at her from below, just as she pushes the trap door open and a gust of cold wind slinks in from the open square.

Against the railing, a black-clad figure stands. He straightens at the sight of her, runs his hands through his feathery hair as his lips pull into a shy smile.

She almost falls back down into the hatch _._

"Whoa, there!"

Chat Noir bounds forwards; in barely a heartbeat, he'd caught both her forearms, gloved fingers holding her tight, keeping her steady. He dips his head to meet her eyes and she swears her knees shook a little.

"Need a hand up?"

Her gaze flits away; she refuses to give herself a reason to let the heat spread any further than her cheeks. "Since you're already halfway there, might as well," she mutters, gruff.

The words had just barely left her mouth when she finds herself lifted out of the hatch. He sets her down gently, hovers for a moment longer as she sways on her feet, and finally steps back to a respectful distance when he deems she won't run the risk of falling again.

He watches her carefully with keen, cattish eyes as she tries to regain her ability to stand.

"What are you doing here?" The question came out sharper than intended.

His smile is intact, but she sees, barely there at the edges, the slow, creeping hurt. "I've caught you at a bad time, I see. Sorry, Marinette."

She sighs, hugs herself. She says, without looking him in the eyes, "No, now's a good time as any, I guess. What is it that you want from me, Chat?" This time, she tries to mould the question into a milder tone.

There's a flicker of hesitance in his green irises, a falter in his smile that he schools away to say, "I actually came to collect a promise you owe me, but seeing as I might have imposed myself on what I assume is an inconvenient hour, I guess it doesn't matter."

 _Damn those eyes_. "It's okay, Chat. I wasn't doing anything." She barely catches the words 'except crying' from flying out. "I don't remember making any pacts with you, though."

"You promised me cookies." A lock of his fair hair flops into his glass green eyes. "For the last time I'd saved you from a particularly…" -he pauses searchingly -" _colourful_ Akuma."

Oh, she remembers that. She'd been in the scene as Marinette and had needed a safe place to transform, and so in the guise of a damsel in distress had let Chat whisk her away to what he assumed is a safe location. She doesn't remember how, but he'd somehow wheedled the promise of cookies as repayment for his dashing rescue. (She had complained to Tikki when he was gone, though, and Tikki had giggled and said that if cookies were repayment, Chat Noir had certainly earned the right to the entirety of her father's bakery. Marinette rebuked rather hotly that she had saved him far more times than he had ever saved her.)

She deliberates the idea of inviting him in for a second longer than she should have. Chat, unexpectedly gentlemanly in the chilly twilight, doesn't come any closer. The way he looks at her from behind his mask is patient and polite. There's a readiness to his stance too, she notices, the way only half his body is facing her while the other points to the metal railing. As if he's expecting her to say no. To send him on his way.

She sighs deeply, not so much directed at Chat as it is directed at herself.

"Wait here," she says, turning, flinging herself down the trapdoor a little more forcefully than she should have.

Tikki zooms at her when she comes to bottom of the ladder, unsurprisingly horrified. "Did I hear that right or was that Chat Noir?"

"It is the stupid cat," Marinette grumbles. She rubs her sleeve against her raw eyes again and hauls the door on the floor of the her bedroom open. "I have to give it him: his timing can either be called detestable or impeccable."

"What does he want?" Tikki dives down the hatch to hover at the bottom.

"Cookies. Can you imagine that?"

Tikki says nothing more as Marinette descends another set of stairs that would take her to the bakery. Vehemently, she snatches a paper bag from the counter and slips into the kitchen for her father's day-old cookies. As she piles them in the bag, Tikki flies next to her head and asks, "Marinette, are you okay?"

Marinette only manages a garbled response that is part an expression of irritation and part a sob.

"Why didn't you send him away then?" Tikki asks, hovering in concern.

Marinette flashes her a wry smile filled with self-deprecation. "Because for some unexplainable reason, I can't do it."

She turns away, unable to stomach the sympathy in Tikki's eyes. More cookies suddenly drop into the bag, and not by her hand. Her fingers falter for a short moment as Tikki eases another cookie through the mouth of the bag without another word. She smiles at her Kwami, heart leavening when she receives one in turn, and gestures her away gently when she's sure the bag contains more than enough of Chat's share.

She leaves the jar out for Tikki and trudges up with the paper bag, careful not to trip on the way.

It's almost completely dark when she pokes her head out, only a smattering of stars between the swirls of clouds. Chat is crouched on the railing, his back to her, the belt looped around his waist dangling like a tail between the steel bars. His sharp ears prick at her soft steps, and he swivels around by the torso, glances at her with something like surprise in his eyes. Gracefully, he unfolds from his crouch, stands precariously on the banister with balance unusual to a boy of seventeen. Before she can open her mouth to automatically chide him though, he leaps down right in front of her, so sudden and startling that she drops the cookies.

With stealthy reflexes, he catches the bottom of the bag just as she regains her grip on the folded top.

It's brief, the moment when they meet each other's eyes, hold and stay.

She lets go of the bag first, furiously looking away.

The silent stretches for a moment longer before she hears him softly ask, "Were you crying, Marinette?"

She starts. "No, I -" she rubs her eyes, desperate to erase the evidence.

He smiles gently. "This cat's no stranger to a lady weeping, I'm afraid."

"I'm sure you've made many girls weep," she replies a bit sourly.

He sighs heavily. "I like to think not because it makes me sad too."

She stares at him from the corner of her eyes. He doesn't look like he's teasing; his unhappiness over the thought is genuine.

 _If he knew it had been because of him what would he have said?_ she wonders, and the urge to tell him, to call Tikki up from her room and transform her then and there is so strong, that she has to fight to push it back down, lock it in a box.

To distract herself, she tries to make herself think about something else. "What happened to your throat, Chat?"

His hand flies up, brushes soft fingers over the gauze wrapped over his bell, as if just realising that it's there. "Just a minor nick. Hardly a cat's scratch, nothing to worry about. Happened when Ladybug and I were trying to save Paris from our latest Akuma."

"The Poet, right? I heard about him." Her eyes linger on his throat, a frown forming. "How is it?"

"It's healing," he says, and his tone sounds gently reassuring. "It gets better every time I transform because -" He stops, as though catching himself in the middle of a train of thought. He smiles at her ruefully. "I'm afraid that's a secret."

She nods. She knows how the Miraculouses work: every time they transform, they share their Kwamis' energy, so Kwamis can direct a portion of their strength into their holder's body to accelerate the healing process of injuries. At present, his Kwami must be trying to coax the tissue to heal, the cut to close.

"Does it hurt?"

"Hardly."

She studies his expression intently; he doesn't seem to be lying so she relaxes, lets the thought go.

"Your concern for my well-being is flattering, Princess." He flashes a sideways smirk.

She scoffs lightly at him, and he laughs. She smiles too, but hides it quickly under the guise of a subtle cough.

"Quite a lot more than I was expecting," he teases, weighing the bag. "You're too generous."

"Since you're already here, why not?" She shrugs noncommittally, feigning indifference. "My father's going to sell those for half price tomorrow anyway."

Chat nods, courteous. "Well, beggars can't be choosers, and you've been very kind to a street cat who'd come only hoping for scraps."

"I'm not _that_ mean," she says, lips tugged down with a frown, unhappy. "These may be a day old but I assure you they're just as good."

He bows his head in apology. "No, don't take it the wrong way! I didn't mean to imply anything that would offend you."

She can't seem stay mad at him.

"Why are you alone tonight, Chat?" she asks a little while later, cutting through a brief moment of silence. "Was there an Akuma attack? Where's Ladybug?"

His shoulders rise and fall in a fluid motion. "No Akumas, but it's been a stifling day. I needed to clear my head, and running on rooftops seemed like the best way. I guess, while I'm at it, I might as well patrol the city too."

"Do you do this often?" she asks curiously. "Patrol on your own?"

"Occasionally." She catches a glimpse of that devil-may-care smile. "My Lady can't be everywhere at once, so I try to do as much as I can to lighten the load."

Softly he adds, just under his breath, "We all have our lives."

The pain is like fog in her chest, gradual as poison taking root. It isn't much of a surprise to her to discover that Chat went on solo missions just as often as she, but hearing the reasons, valiant and unselfish, coming from his own lips did blossom in her a sort of wistful affection for the little black cat.

She hugs herself as another gust of wind runs its fingers through Chat's golden mane, catching wayward strands. "Well, you best get on then."

He doesn't.

He makes no move to leave as he stands across from her, bag of treats clutched in black gloved hands, pretty eyes looking ruminatively into her own.

"I was told that there's going to be fireworks tonight by the Tower." His eyes wander to the horizon, melancholic. "Can we see it from here?"

She swallows down her groan. Chat's eyes, when they turn back to her, are imploring, patient for an answer.

"Yes. Yes, we can see it from here."

It pushes at her throat, the desperate scream telling him to go away, to not torment her anymore, but just like air, it dissipates from her lips.

"Well." He jingles the bag of cookies. "I have snacks, if you would care to join me."

Despite the pain, despite logic telling her that it's a terribly bad idea to watch fireworks with Chat Noir when he's unknowingly the cause of her broken heart, she barks out a laugh and somehow can't find the strength in her to turn back, open the trapdoor, leave him there as she slips inside.

"You are… something, Chat. That you definitely are."

Infuriatingly, he smirks. "If by _something_ you mean dashing and handsome and incredibly charming, then I agree."

"By charming you mean occasionally maddening, then _I_ agree," she grumbles, coming forwards to hook her fingers over the railing, lean on her elbows to admire Paris' cold, aching beauty.

"You didn't refute dashing and handsome," he notes gleefully, sidling beside her; just by her right shoulder, close, but not touching. The same position he occupies when she's masked and plotting.

She rolls her eyes at him. "Chat, that ego of yours is going to be in for some bruising if you keep it up with me."

"I've always pegged you as a tough one." He bumps her lightly on the shoulder, friendly.

She physically refrains herself from bumping his back, which would have been her usual response, had she been Ladybug and Chat Noir is there to tease her.

She hears a rustle and notices that he's already reaching a greedy paw into the bag of cookies. He waves it under her nose as he munches happily. "Want some?"

She pushes his hand away. "I live in a bakery, Chat. I eat cookies every day. Those are all yours."

"No words can express my gratitude, Princess."

Though he says it with his usual eloquent finesse, much of the charm is lost in a mouthful cookies.

"Why don't you do this with Ladybug?" she asks, watching as he goes through his third cookie.

His chewing slows, stops. He takes his time swallowing even though just now he'd barely taken a breath between one chew and the next.

"I imagine Ladybug already has someone to watch the fireworks with," he says after a while. "She had always alluded throughout the few years of our partnership that there's someone that she loves. Someone she really cares about." He chuckles, soft. "I hope he realises what a lucky guy he is."

Unconsciously, she has begun to chew on her lip. Marinette quickly tucks her teeth back where they belong and tries to redirect her anxiety to her fingers, clamping down hard on the metal.

"You shouldn't assume. Ladybug might be just as lonely as anyone in the city right now."

Chat is silent for a while before he says, "I hope not. My greatest hope for Ladybug has always been her happiness."

She sighs softly.

"What about you?" He plucks another cookie and munches on it thoughtfully. "Why are you alone in such a lovely night? Didn't anyone invite you to come with them to see the show?"

She sighs. "A few did. My closest friends. But one couldn't come and I didn't have the heart to join the other two, so here I am."

"The one that couldn't come." She feels the warmth of his eyes on her, watching her. "Why couldn't he?"

"He was sick. High fever. I worry about him a little, but they all said he would be fine." She blows air between her lips. "I hope he will be."

"I'm sure he'll get well," Chat says reassuringly.

"What's your excuse?"

"Pardon?"

She stares at the distance, where the last dredges of light is being siphoned off the sky. "Why aren't you down there as yourself, not a superhero? With friends. With family."

"We can't always get what we want," he murmurs in answer, distant. There's hurt in his expression, vulnerability; inexplicable pain that she has never seen as Ladybug, when he is always Chat Noir, and not this mixture of lost boy and cocky superhero that she has yet to figure out.

"Are you lonely, Chat?"

He blinks, as if surprised to have been asked the question. "No," he answers, slowly, as if deliberating his words. "I have the best of friends. The best of partners. Between them and Ladybug, I've never felt alone."

"What about when they're not here, and you're not fighting crime with Ladybug?"

He gazes at her sideways, smiles a bitter smile. "I try to make do."

They hear a soft crackle, then the sound of rockets launching, the sizzle and spit of fire arching across air. They turn their heads to Paris' muted landscape, dulled by the fall of night. An explosion lights the entire city, tinges it with the green of emeralds, of Chat's eyes. More come at its tail: red, blue, exquisite turquoise. They leave behind smoke and scatter charred debris in the air. Some catch in her hair, flitter around Chat's dark suit and disappear.

"How beautiful," Chat mutters, wistful.

She nods, sighs. She leans her head against her palm and feels a twinge of guilt that Tikki isn't able to come join, that the poor thing is relegated to watching from the window of her room instead of under the gorgeous Parisian sky. She'll make up for it, she decides. She'll sneak in more of Tikki's favourite cookies and talk with her for the rest of the night.

A light brush of something against her hair makes her start. Chat's hand is still hovering over her head when she turns to look at him; he pulls it back, smiles, and rests his fingers back the on railing.

"Some of the stuff was getting in your hair," he says as a manner of explanation.

There's a bit of heat on her cheeks when she turns away. Chat's touch had been fleeting and gentle, a little like butterfly wings.

"I can't thank you enough, Marinette, for accommodating an uninvited guest. I guess Ladybug is right: I can be very selfish."

"That's not true," she automatically says, and has to stop herself from wincing because _God, she should not have said the first thing that came to her mind out loud_.

He laughs softly. "Well, maybe not. She did say it when were both fifteen. I think I must have been a real nuisance to her then."

"You were a bit annoying," she grudgingly admits. "Even to me."

"Think it's possible to forgive a cat's misguided attempts to impress a girl?"

She stares at a rocket spiralling into the night. "She'll forgive you. Ladybug's heart is not made of stone."

"What about you?" His voice is low.

" _..._ I forgive you."

He smiles and it's genuine. Slowly, he folds himself into a bow; head dipped, red and blue and purple whirling across wisps of faint gold.

"That means a lot me." He rises with a playful smile and laughing eyes. "So long, Princess, and don't wait on me."

He winks, and like a shadow in the night, disappears. She makes out the outline of a lithe, slender boy leaping over the street, running over roofs, vanishing.

"Stupid cat," she says sinking her head into her hands.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: I'm really sorry for the late update guys. I'm just so busy with life. There's hardly any time for me to even write. But don't worry. I do plan on continuing this story and I'll do my best to finish it. I apologise if that will be a long time coming, but I'll try.

But enough of my ramblings. For now, ladies and gentlemen, have a dose of Adrienette.

* * *

Adrien finally shows up when Monday rolls around, dressed to the nines in a green button-down, slim dark jeans, and white sneakers. Nino gives a whistle when he saunters into class and pats him hard on the shoulder.

"Well, well. Look at you. Who are we trying to impress today?"

Adrien smiles innocently. "What are you talking about? I just threw on whatever I saw hanging in my closet."

Nino chuckles. "Yeah. I know you're a model and all dude, but even I can see this took some effort."

"And after a terrible cold, too," Alya chimes in, grinning. Under the table, she nudges Marinette. "Someone's excited for school."

Adrien laughs lightly. "You guys. It's just an outfit."

He meets Marinette's eyes then, smiles. She is barely able to return it, being too mortified to have been caught staring. Adrien does look good today (although there has never been a day in Marinette's memory when he doesn't, but that's another story). The button-down is gorgeously cut to fit his form, matches his eyes, too, in colour. The jeans emphasize the length of his legs and his hair looks impeccably styled, though she knows Adrien rarely puts much effort in styling his hair, since it already falls perfectly on his head without being given the extra attention.

"Morning," he says softly. She may have been dreaming but the greeting seems to have been more for her than the rest.

She decides that yes, she is dreaming. (Maybe even hallucinating.)

There's quiet snickering coming from close to her ear. Without looking, she aims a kick at Alya underneath the table, who shirks away, grinning.

"Mornings with the two of you always make my day," the girl whispers over her tablet when Marinette turns to glare at her after Adrien had shifted his attention elsewhere.

"Alya!" She makes a frantic gesture with her eyes to tell her best friend that now is not the time, that he is too close to not be able to hear anything they say right behind his back.

Alya's smile softens. She reaches out pinches Marinette's cheeks fondly. "There's my girl. I'm so glad you've gotten over your slump."

Stunned, Marinette offers a sheepish smile. Trust Alya to note every difference in her mood and care for her like a sister.

At that moment, Adrien turns in his chair to face them. "So, uh, how was the fireworks? I'm really sorry I couldn't go." He looks thoroughly apologetic.

"Don't be," Alya remarks offhandedly. "Marinette wasn't there either."

Marinette has to bite down the shriek of horror building up in her throat. Really, Alya? Do you have to tell him that?

"Really? Why?"

Adrien's eyes are on her, concerned and politely inquiring. There's a weight to them that makes butterflies flutter in her stomach, a quiet curiosity of various layers that makes her want to look away.

She smiles tightly. "Wasn't feeling up to it."

"She was feeling down in the dumps, so Nino and I figured we should let her have some time on her own." Alya squeezes her hand to tell her that she has her back. Marinette's shoulders relax.

"Are you okay, Marinette?" Adrien asks. He tilts his head at her and light catches in his eyes. Something about the dancing colours look familiar, the way it plays on his hair and skims his jawline.

"Yeah," she tries to scrounge a bright smile from the pits of her misery, though she isn't sure if it's the truth or a lie.

Thankfully, Nino unknowingly comes to her rescue, remarking, "It's too bad you both missed it, man."

He leans back with a sigh, one arm draped over the back of his chair. His eyes look glazed, as though he's seeing the show replayed in his head. "All the colours and shapes! They were awesome."

"I'm surprised you even saw them," Alya comments wryly. "When you were too busy filming everyone else."

"Oh. So you two went together?" There's a twist to Adrien's lips now that Marinette decides she can come to like. He glances at her briefly, and it's contagiousness makes her plaster her own wide smile across her face.

Alya senses the vibe between them and her eyes go wide. "He insisted. Said he'll just look miserable going alone."

"But I would," Nino chimes in unwisely, rather oblivious to the situation, namely, Alya's death glare to both Marinette and Adrien. "I mean, there were all those couples there…"

As Nino trails off, Marinette's grin could've split her face. Below, Adrien's expression is getting increasingly amused. Alya smacks her palm against her forehead and sinks down with a groan.

She's saved however, because the teacher chooses that moment to walk into the class.

"Must have been romantic," Marinette whispers teasingly once both Adrien and Nino had turned back to face the board.

Alya glances at her exasperatedly from underneath her hand, but then it dissipates into a soft smile. "It would've been romantic too, for you and Adrien," she says, with no particular teasing note.

Marinette smiles, squeezes her hand. Her heart feels heavy all of a sudden. Alya's right: it was romantic. It's just that instead of Adrien, she had shared the moment with Chat, and it strikes her hard the realisation that then, she hadn't felt the least bit guilty.

* * *

Marinette is blasting music in her earbuds when she walks into the library later that evening. Under her breath, she hums the tune, one of the many songs of Nino's weekly recommendations that he always insists she and Alya listen to, and far be it for Marinette to refuse; Nino's ear for music has always been solid and reliable.

She's walking with her head in her sketchpad, which, according to Alya, is never a good idea as there has never been a time when Marinette is on steady feet. But inspiration is a fleeting thing and it's always an ongoing battle to not let the best slip away, so Marinette has overlooked her motherly admonishments many times in favour of stitching notes and sketching the perfect hemline.

She doesn't quite notice the sound of the crash until she catches the tail end of a soft curse, floating from the shelf next to her.

Her first instinct, of course, given the record of her clumsiness, is to immediately wonder whom she had crashed into this time. She whirls around and finds nothing but an empty door swinging harmlessly behind her.

It's just about then that she catches sight of a familiar blonde head sprawled by the shelves, half buried in books with a slightly dazed look in his eyes.

She gapes.

"You should watch where you're going, boy," a slightly gruff, disapproving voice floats over from the librarian's desk. "Or else I'm going to have to ban you from the library. Books ain't cheap. Neither do they come rolling by your feet every time you need 'em."

Adrien rises, his eyes slightly wide, golden hair falling into uncharacteristic disarray about his head. Both his cheeks and ears are pink. "Sorry, sir. I truly am."

The old man scoffs, descends to his post behind the oak desk with very audible mutterings of "Kids these days. Never in my day do we run into oak shelves for no apparent reason."

Adrien is on his knees, picking up the books he'd dropped. Marinette, having regained some semblance of sense after the shock of witnessing the entire scene, scrambles over to help. She tucks her pencil behind her ear and leaves her sketchbook on the floor as she picks up the volumes Adrien had missed, the ones too far for him to reach.

"Are you okay?" she asks softly, aware of the eyes that had turned to stare. Thankfully, after a grunt or two of expressed annoyance, most of them have turned back towards their work.

"Yeah, yeah." He sounds a bit breathless, and, to be honest, a more pinker on the cheeks than before. "I guess I wasn't looking where I was going."

She takes a brown leather bound book and gently smooths down it's crumpled pages. She offers it to him with a smile, a little surprised over how heavy it weighs. "We all have our off days. Mine's pretty much every day."

Adrien stifles a laugh against his sleeve, his eyes crinkling up in a beautiful smile. "I guess we do."

"I never expected you to have one though." It takes a while for the words she'd blurted out to actually sink in her head and her eyes widen in horror. "Oh, I didn't mean -you always looked so cool-um..."

Adrien's still chuckling, and even under the soft library lights she can make out the twinkle in his eyes, the warmth of his expression.

Marinette blanks out at that point.

"We should, uh, talk outside?" she says, functioning on autopilot.

"Yes, we should," he agrees, adjusting the books in his arms. He dumps them all in the trolley and mutters another quick apology to the old librarian.

She's still in too much of a transfixed state to properly register Adrien coming back to where she's standing stock still, kneeling, and picking up the pink and black polka dotted sketchbook she had left lying on the floor.

He brushes his fingers over the cover. They linger, soft and light over the handmade felt cover, fond. Then, he passes it back to her, prodding her gently on the arm when she doesn't immediately take it. She snaps back to reality, flushes, and accepts it.

"Thanks," she whispers as she passes by, Adrien holding open the door. He lets it close behind them as realisation hits and she frowns, digging a hand through her bag and muttering, "Where's my pencil?"

Adrien smiles, leans forwards, and plucks something from her hair. He holds the sneaky thing out to her, his eyes soft.

"Oh, um, there it is!" she laughs, awkward as she quickly takes it from his fingers.

They trail off; she shuffles on her feet and looks down at the floor, wondering what else to say. Speaking to Adrien is overwhelming to say the very least; it's hard to see him as anything else other than the perfect boy who is good at everything, kind to most, and is both introspective and mild-mannered.

She takes a deep breath to collect her thoughts and begins, "Look, I -I better get back in there. Same as reason as before. Work, work, work." She smiles ruefully up at him, but all is forgotten when her lips turn down in a frown and she leans closer, trying to get a better look at his forehead. "Oh, dear. Adrien, I think you should go to the nurse. There's a bump on your forehead."

Absently, she reaches up to brush his hair out of his eyes to get a better look. She freezes mid-motion though, when it dawns on her exactly what she is doing.

She leaps back and draws back her hand quickly. Adrien isn't exactly moving; his eyes are wide and staring.

She tries to salvage her dignity with a smile that is both pained and mortified —nothing close to the effect she'd hoped for, which leans somewhere between the mix of comfort and sympathy. "It —ah, ahem —looks really bad."

"Nah," Adrien mutters. He's looking away, rubbing his palm against the back of his head. "I have fencing soon, so it'll be fine. It'll be hidden under the mask, anyway."

"Are you sure you'll be fine?" she asks, frowning. "You seem a bit red. And forehead was… warm. Your fever's not coming back again, is it?"

She can see him swallowing.

"Yeah, don't worry, Marinette." He smiles brightly, though it looks a bit strained on the edges. "I'll be as right as rain."

"If you say so," she mutters, a little concerned. "I better get going then."

He glances at her sketchbook. "So you should. Lots to do, right?"

"Yes," she nods, smiles. "Too much to do, actually."

He laughs, musical. "Me too."

They turn at the same time. She hears the sound of his footsteps walking away as she places her hand on the knob. Before she can slip back in though, he calls her name. "Marinette?"

She pauses, raises her face to look at him. "Yeah?"

"I'll be finishing at five, just so you know." He smiles, shy, still with a little bit of pink on his ears. "If you'd like company on your way home…"

"I'll keep that in mind." She slips between the door, pokes her head out to smile. "Thanks, Adrien."

* * *

She actually forgets Adrien's shy offer after she had lost herself deep enough in her work. There's a lot to do: homework to finish and a quiz to study for. Tikki sits in the open purse on her lap and smiles every time Marinette turns to her for encouragement. Occasionally, she would float out discreetly to pat her on the thigh or whisper a quiet word or two so Marinette won't get bored.

She concludes the session the same way she started it: with a sketchbook in hand, wandering between the shelves and out the door to get started on the walk home. She bumps into a few ex-classmates along the way; Juleka playfully tickles her side and Rose bends over to marvel at her sketches. Marinette smiles along with their praises and mutters sincere thank yous as she turns the knob on the door and slips outside.

A shadow detaches itself from the wall beside her, tall and lean. She shrieks out of surprise and the shadow darts forwards, becomes a boy with his hands held out, placating.

Adrien looks thoroughly apologetic, running his fingers through his hair as she stares. Post-practice Adrien has damp hair, curling in flicks, and a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, heavy with equipment. He sticks his hands in his pockets and shuffles on his feet.

"So… walk home with me?"

For a moment, she isn't quite sure what to say, having yet to to get over the initial shock of having him wait for her. But then, as though fate has decided it's time for it to have a hand in the entire situation, thunder rumbles and raindrops fall.

Adrien's eyes flicker towards the clouds; his expression edges on worry. He unzips his bag, rummages through it, and draws out an umbrella which he holds out between them, his smile shy.

"I have an umbrella."

Marinette stares at him a little longer, then breaks out into relieved giggles. "This is familiar."

He smiles wider, though a red flush is creeping up his collar. He looks abashed, his eyes wandering away.

"Open it then, and let's get going." She taps it lightly with her pencil.

It's quite the show, watching Adrien struggle with opening a simple umbrella. His fingers must have been cold, she thinks, for them to fumble so clumsily over the flapping nylon. It seems to take herculean effort to straighten the skeleton, click everything into place.

He holds it up over his head with a strained, awkward smile. "Uh, I promise it won't snap back."

This time, Marinette's giggles turn to laughter, and shaking her head, she slips under the umbrella beside him, nudging him gently on the arm to get him moving.

"What about Nathalie?" she asks softly as they hop down the steps. "Is she alright with you not taking the car?"

"I managed to convince my dad to forgo the car." He shrugs lightly. "The chauffeur thing is starting to get... excessive, and I'm old enough to get by on my own. Now, they only come to pick me up if I have a shoot straight after school."

She casts him a sidelong glance. "So you spoke to him?"

It takes a while for the answer to come, and when it does, it's breathy and soft. "Yes, I did." He shakes his head, trains his gaze ahead, eyes squinted as though he's trying to make out something in the far distance. "Let's just forget about that. Talk about something else."

She pats his arm consolingly, respecting his wishes. "How's the fever? Did it act up again?"

He stares at her blankly for a while, and then coughs, brings up a sleeve to muffle it against. "Oh, uh, yeah. It's better. Practice went along smoothly." He peeks at her beneath his soft, curling bangs. "How was the studying?"

"Better than the last few times." She sighs, contented. "Got in a few minutes of designing too."

"The designs." He leans to her in interest. "Can I see them?"

For a while, she balks. Showing her designs had always been a terrifying notion, especially to persons of consequence. But Adrien is not a person of consequence so much as he is her friend, one who has seen her designs many times at that. She deliberates the thought, makes up her mind. Silently, she passes the book to Adrien's waiting hands and takes the umbrella from him.

"These are amazing!" He gushes, ardently flipping through the pages. She'd managed to fill up about half or so of the sketchbook, some she has yet to revise but most being her pride and joy. "You could be hired if you showed this to companies, I swear."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," she says, smiling. Adrien's enthusiasm is contagious.

"I'm not joking, Marinette. I would do it myself, but my father rarely listens to me." His smile is both sharp and sad as he hands it back to her. "You're very talented, Marinette. I've no idea how many times I've told you that."

"These are actually some of the designs I was going to show to Alya. She's going to pick the ones that are going in the new line in our online shopping mall."

He nods, rapt in attention. "Ah, the one under the Ladyblog, right?"

She shrugs, laughs lightly. "Alya wouldn't leave me alone about the idea. I couldn't say no."

"It's good that you didn't," Adrien interjects. "I've browsed through. They were all great. They were all… you."

Something bumps her lightly on the leg: Tikki, agreeing and encouraging.

Soft rumbling above make them both look up. With some dismay, they discover that it's pouring heavier. The hem of Adrien's jeans look wet and heavy; she realises then that the right sleeve of his shirt is pretty much soaked too from the way he'd tilted the umbrella, favouring her instead of his right side.

Without thinking, she grabs his hand and rights the angle. He jumps a little; she can feel it in his fingers.

When she looks up at him though, he only smiles down at her, shrugs with a laugh.

"Those designs looked too precious to get wet," he clarifies, eyes shifting away.

"You shouldn't have let yourself get wet because of it."

"It didn't seem right to let you get wet," he says quietly.

She's about to sputter something back about the notion being silly while still trying to process everything he'd just said when she hears the softest of mews, lost in the drum of the rain. She pauses. He does too, cocking his head to the side as though to hear better.

Marinette steps out of the umbrella, mindless of the rain, of the exclamation of surprise uttered by Adrien as water drips onto her hair, down her neck. Quickly, she stuffs her sketchbook into her book bag, walks swiftly across the glistening sidewalk to a dank alleyway. There, a small box leans against the wall, soaked with running water. She crouches and frowns down at it.

"What is it?" Adrien calls, right above her. She realises that he'd been following her with the umbrella, making sure she stays dry as she wanders.

She reaches in and picks it up: a little bundle of soft black fur and the gleaming green eyes of Chat Noir.

"A kitten," she says, turning to him, frown still set on her lips. She brings it to her face, looks into those unblinking eyes as she murmurs, "How'd you end up there, sweetie?"

"It's abandoned."

There's something soft and sad about Adrien's tone, about his eyes when he reaches out a hand to the kitten's ears, runs it through the fur. His head is tilted down; she can see his hair brushing into his eyes, dark gold from the rain.

"You poor angel," she says. The kitten's purr builds up in its chest, vibrates against her touch. "I want to take you with me, I really do, but I can't keep you. My parents won't allow it." Morosely, she brushes her fingers against its soft face, watching it lean, beg for more.

Softly, he says, "I will."

She looks up, surprised. His eyes are dark and solemn, the green of moss, of a forest in the night. Calmly, he holds his hand out. She hands him the kitten, takes the umbrella he passes to her, and watches as he fumbles with the zipper and gently, carefully, deposits it inside.

"Are you sure your father won't mind?" she asks, worried.

"It's just for a while. I'll take it to the shelter when I can. Besides," his voice grows soft, "what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

She grips the umbrella tight, unsure what to say.

Adrien smiles at her discomfort, plucks the umbrella out of her hand, and gazes at her with the same eyes, she just realises, as the kitten she'd held.

"Shall we?" He makes a small gesture towards the path before them.

She's about to respond when the kitten mews from his bag, muffled by layers of cloth. Together, they laugh, rain pattering against the umbrella, onto their path, the glistening Parisian streets.

* * *

"You stupid boy."

Adrien takes the insult with only half a mind, more concerned with the kitten in his hands than a bothered Kwami. He dumps the cotton wad into the bin on his way out, smeared with concealer. The scar from the sword is a white slash over his neck, healing.

"Shut up, Plagg. He had no place to go."

He saunters out of the bathroom, the little black thing wrapped in a towel. Plagg is zipping about the empty air, considerably disgruntled.

Adrien raises a brow. "Shouldn't you be more considerate? You and he are practically one and the same. You even look similar."

Plays scowls magnificently. "I represent his species, but I am not part of his species. I don't appreciate having to share my space with a big bundle of fur that keeps trying to rub itself against me to leech off my warmth."

Adrien frowns. "Plagg, be nice. He was cold."

Plagg pretends not hear him. "And my precious Camembert! He'll eat them all."

"Plagg." Adrien's patience is wearing very thin. He sets the kitten down on the couch. "Cats don't eat cheese. Their food palate is far classier than yours."

"Oh, so smelly fish counts as a classy food palate?"

Adrien groans. "I never thought you could be this selfish. I'll send him to the shelter in a few days, so just bear with him all right? In fact, I'm pretty much sure it's the other way round: he has to bear with you."

"I can't believe you took him because you wanted to impress the girl."

The statement takes him by surprise, makes him freeze, stand amidst the vast room in solid stillness. Plagg's eyes are green and fixed on him, heavy with perceptiveness, with wisdom Adrien can never seem to get used to from his cavalier Kwami.

"I didn't take it because I wanted to impress Marinette," he says, lips tight.

"Why then?"

He looks away, refusing to answer.

He hears a sigh, the soft swish of parting air as Plagg zooms away. Towards his cheese stash, probably, which Adrien had indulgently let him keep in one of his cupboards (provided that its far far away from where he does his work.)

"You're a mess, kid," Plagg's voice floats over to him.

Adrien's knees give away, and he drops onto the couch where he lounges for the rest of the night, petting the kitten as it snuggles on his chest.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Hey, guys. Super long hiatus between updates, I know, and I feel really really bad about it. But really, I don't have any excuse besides being super busy lately. I try to write, but I mostly write on stolen time these days. My sincerest apologies. You guys have been lovely in your patience.

* * *

Ladybug looks up, squinting into the bright light of the sun. It's a glorious afternoon, warm as any, leaves gently swaying in the breeze. The sky is clear—rain hadn't been forecasted to mar this marvelous day (not accounting the Akuma running rampant that is)—so she can clearly see, swishing lightly against against the slender column of metal, a thick leather belt, black as night, tangling with steel-capped boots.

"If you would so kind, milady." His voice carries lightly with the wind, somewhat remorseful. "We have a cat stuck in a tree."

She can't help the laugh. It bubbles in her, out of her lips, and despite the sun burning against her eyes, she doubles over, hands against her knees, tears swimming.

"Ah. The Lady is amused."

"Oh Chat," she says, straightening. She winds her yoyo, tosses. It coils just a few inches over Chat's head. "How'd the kitten get himself roped to a pole?" She tugs the string a bit, then pulls herself up in a graceful leap.

"How'd we always end up with villains that get power over random household items?" He shakes his head morosely as their gazes meet on her way up. "Honestly, my greatest fears have come true. A villain with power over rope. Made of it, too, from what I saw."

Crouched on the very top, she giggles over Chat's dramatic distress, knowing he's only putting on a show for her. He gets ridiculous sometimes, but he's never let it jeopardise the way he fights, so she's learned to giggle along with him when he lapses into periods of melodrama.

She hooks her feet on the string of the yoyo, lowers herself behind the silly cat. Positioning herself carefully, she begins working on the rope, loosening it, getting the knot to tug free.

"Did you see where the Akuma might have been?" she asks as she works.

It's a hard knot, and she's aware that, in their dallying, some part of Paris is suffering severe vandalisation. But a small part of her, the selfish little girl she always tries to forget when she has to wear the mask of Paris' saviour, basks in the moment of lightness and laughter, the ease of their playful banter, when she can pretend that the world isn't going to end.

"There was a necklace," he recalls, turning partially to look at her. He only manages as far as his bonds would allow him, but she catches the edge of that smile, the rascal's smirk.

Finally, the rope loosens, slips from her fingers. Chat's quick reflexes allow him to catch the pole between clawed fingers before he could fall, and he dangles, effortless and casual, as though it doesn't cost him any strength at all. He loosens his grip, hooks an ankle to the pole, and lets himself slide down.

"Standard formation?" he asks, his feet touching the ground first. Instinctively, he turns and catches her as she descends before setting her on the ground, accepting the baton she holds out to him, which he'd undoubtedly misplaced sometime during his solo scuffle with the rope creature. "I distract, you grab the necklace, purify the Akuma, and we'll all be on our way home."

"Sounds like a plan, kitten. Now, keep up with me. We've wasted a lot of time on you."

"And I feel paw-sitively awful for it."

Rolling her eyes at his morose pout, she launches herself in the air. As always, Chat accustoms himself to the pace easily, taking off after her; soon, he's close behind her. She relaxes her shoulders, forces the cogs to turn in her head, basking in his comforting presence.

* * *

They land amidst the bars of the Eiffel Tower, exhilarated and laughing.

Steady on her feet on the metal beams, she gazes out towards where pastel coloured buildings lie, where concrete snake into mazes and the horizon cuts across in a decisive slash of a line. Once again, Miraculous Ladybug has stored peace, and what had been wrecked has been healed and repaired.

"That was surprisingly easy," Chat remarks. He's standing close to her, one hand resting against a slanted beam, gazing out into the open vista. "And we had time to take turns to recharge too. I call that a rare victory."

"Don't get too comfortable, kitty. You did get tied up to a flagpole."

"There was that _minor_ obstacle," he acknowledges. "But the rest was rather smooth sailing, wasn't it?"

"Too smooth," she murmurs, looking away into the distance again.

The clouds are pretty, soft and light as cotton candy. It's a scenic view, despite the chaos the city had witnessed. She wonders what Paris would have looked like if she and Chat Noir aren't there to save it, if Akumas were given free reign to lay waste to everything Paris holds dear. What would stand and what would fall?

Her thoughts are broken by the sound of Chat's voice, saying, "—you, my Lady, performed excellently. I had never been more dazzled by your creativity."

She punches him on the arm, lips threatening to smile. "I don't fall for your praises you little—"

Her voice dies, seeing the look in Chat's eyes; while his words had been jovial, his eyes carry melancholy. He's not facing Paris but her, his head and gaze bent towards her, the white scar of the sword stark against his skin, running just an inch or so over the golden bell.

"You laugh all too easily, my Lady," he says, and his tone is melancholic. "But your eyes turn sad just as quickly."

"What are you talking about, Chat?" she says lightly. "I'm just thinking, is all, about Paris. How it would be if we aren't here to protect it."

Chat nods, acknowledging, but his searching eyes never leave her face. "Ladybug, are you happy?"

Her lips part; her throat shrivels into nothing. Chat's sincerity is difficult to swallow, and the words play, over and over and over, familiar in her head. She reels back to her encounter with Chat on the rooftop as Marinette, his true despondence when she selfishly gave him the notion that Ladybug might be alone, that she might be weeping in silent company.

"Of course I am." The words are raw, wrung from her throat.

"I never asked about your personal life." He shuffles on his feet, pushes his boot to the edge, then draws it back in rhythmic scrapes, as though he's trying to pace his thoughts to the beat. "Mostly because I respect that you want a professional relationship between us. But I care about you, and I'd like you to know that I want you to be happy. I want you to have," he smiles, "a wonderful life."

She takes a deep breath. "I am happy, Chat." _Every time I'm with my friends: Alya, Adrien, Nino… you._

His smile doesn't waver. He leans against the bar with a stretch, gazes out again. "How's the boy?"

She blinks owlishly at him.

He chances a glance at her and there's still that twist on his lips, the piqued interest that weaves itself through his irises with skeins of care and concern. "The one you're in love with," he clarifies simply.

Her mouth feels as parched as sandpaper. It takes effort to not twist her fingers together in front of her. "He's fine, I think."

Chat nods, believing her. "Does he treat you well?"

"As well as he can, which is more than I deserve sometimes." She looks up, catching him dead in the eye. "Chat, how did you… how did you know anything about him?"

It's a question that she hadn't been able to ask as Marinette, but now, standing here as Ladybug, masked and confident, the question slips out all too easily, her curiosity plain and unsuppressed.

"Because you laugh with me and smile at the far distance," Chat says simply, hands behind his back.

The air is frigid up here; it stings her throat every time she inhales. "How long have you… noticed?"

Chat smiles and it's both consoling and sorrowful. "Long enough."

She's speechless, staring.

"If the boy won your heart, then he must be worthy of my Lady's love," he declares, exhaling into the cool air, which dissipates into soft laughter. "I was so jealous of him."

"Chat, I—"Her words waver, and there's that pain in her heart again, cords binding, thread as thin and fine as hair squeezing her from the inside. "I'm sorry, I—I didn't—"

"It's okay, Ladybug," he says, gentle. "You don't have to apologise for it. The heart wants what the heart wants. And our partnership— _your friendship—_ is far too precious to me. I wouldn't trade it for the world."

"But Chat…" she wrings her hands together, twists her fingers hard just so she can find an anchor in pain. "Do you still love me?" she squeaks.

He smiles and bows a tiny bow, hand to his heart. "As much as a Chat can love his Lady. Part of my heart will always belong to you, no matter whom I've grown to love."

"Have you then, Chat?" Her voice sounds tiny. "Have you found someone who makes you happy?"

When Chat smiles again, she can feel her world shattering. Chat never lies to her, and in his eyes now is the open truth. His chin jerks in the smallest of nods.

It's about then that she finds the air up here not only cold, but awfully stifling.

"Tell me about her," she says instead, because the hunger is there, the desperation to know whom Chat loves, to judge if she's worth that golden heart.

"She's fascinating." He says it with a sigh, and Ladybug's smile strains at the edges. "Beautiful. Whip smart. Talented." He looks down at the beams, the ground far below. "I've known her for a pretty long time and I've always thought she was wonderful." His lips lift in tender fondness. "She's cute and very… expressive. It's fun guessing what she'll do next. I don't really know when I started seeing her more than a friend," he admits, flushing under the black mask, "but the more I got to know her, the more I saw. She has a beautiful and kind heart."

"Sounds remarkable, your dream girl," she comments offhandedly, making an effort to not seem malicious.

"She is a dream. A lot of boys pine for her." He laughs. Despite the silent scream of her breaking heart, it's the most beautiful thing she's ever heard. "I don't think she has a clue about it though."

"Surely beauty comes with awareness," she says dubiously.

"Not with her. I can tell she doesn't know."

She clenches her fist, then relaxes. She breaths cold air through her lips, leaves it to sear through her lungs. It touches her heart, too, unintentionally, and she can feel the broken cracks, the red, bleeding edges, the pulsing jealousy.

Something she can't do anything about.

"If she ever hurts you," she begins, staring at the thin scar on his throat, the imprint of the pressed blade. "If she ever makes you sad, tell me, and I'll know what to say to her."

Chat's tips his chin in surprise, but the smirk is there, dancing on his lips with amusement. "That seems to go against the code of secrecy, but all right, my Lady." He laughs. "Under the condition that you tell me if _he_ breaks _your_ heart. I'll wear a blindfold to beat him up of I have to."

She bursts out laughing. "Chat, you know that's going to do more harm than good."

He shrugs remorselessly. "But you get the idea. I'll protect you, Ladybug. Forever and always, no matter what."

At that the laughter dies from her lips. The smile she forces stretches her lips thin, wobbling at the edges while her heart chips.

This.

This is just a plain mess.

* * *

"Adrien?" Nino is eyeing his friend strangely, speaking through the hand pressed to his mouth as though he had meant to muffle an exclamation of surprise. "Why is your hood meowing?"

Marinette's pen freezes. Her head snaps up. The back of Adrien's neck and shoulders are stiff, and she can see the fine trickle of sweat slipping down the back of his neck. She slides forwards on her seat, gazes down with disbelief down the hood.

"Adrien," she gasps, causing both Adrien and Nino to turn, and Alya to raise a subtle brow in her direction. "You didn't just do what I think you did!"

Adrien whips around and presses his finger to his lips, his eyes pleading. He turns his head left and right, checking the coast, before he nods and reaches behind him to poke the kitten gently. He turns so Marinette can see it, while Nino and Alya stare, slack-jawed.

When the kitten opens its mouth to mew again, all three frantically begin coughing and sneezing.

"Flu season," Alya clarifies when the teacher looks up, smiling apologetically.

"Dude, are you _nuts_?" Nino whispers frantically once she'd turned away.

Alya, on the hand, caught on something else. "Wait. Marinette, you know about the kitten?"

"We found it yesterday," she mutters without thinking. She flushes when she realises her mistake, but a glance at Alya tells her that she's not going to let it go that easily.

"Marinette picked it up when we were walking home together," Adrien clarifies and she just manages to refrain from leaping out of her seat when Alya discreetly slaps her arm from under the table. "It was raining, so I volunteered to take him home."

"That's very kind and all," Nino whispers, pretending to be busy with the textbook they're supposed to be reading. "But what about your pops? He's alright with this sort of thing?"

Adrien's smile grows a little brittle at the edges. "That's why I had to bring it to school. If him or Nathalie start snooping around my room, then it'll be the end of it."

"It'll be the end of _you_ if the teachers found out you brought a pet to class," Alya says, not unkindly.

"I know." He looks up at them beseechingly. "That's why I need you guys to help me hide it.

"Oh, Adrien," Marinette sighs, speaking above the pen she pretends to move over the page. "If you had told me that it cost you this much trouble I would have -"

"No," he interjects, shaking his head. "It's perfectly fine. Besides, he's a nice little guy. I kind of like him."

She eyes him skeptically, but Adrien is resolute. It's then that the kitten decides to poke its face out of the hood, and Marinette bites her lip to keep from cooing. It looks at her with green, curious eyes, so much like Chat's when he gazes wonderingly at her after she announces an idea and instructs him to stage a diversion.

"Fine," she says to it, "you win."

She notices the hood shaking; Adrien quivers with the silent laughter that he tries to hide behind his textbook, grin splitting from ear to ear.

She feels a subtle kick against her shoe; Alya discreetly taps the pen she's writing with when Marinette turns to glare at her, signalling with her eyes at to the teacher. Marinette takes the hint without looking up and bends her focus to her work, praying that she'll be spared this once.

She is, and as she relaxes herself into the rhythm of her pen, she notices he corner of a paper sliding towards her. Scribbled across, in Alya distinguishable penmanship: _You are so telling me, girl! What happened between you and Adrien?!_

She smiles a tight and guilty smile.

* * *

"Adrien walked you _home?"_ Alya rounds on her with her hands on her hips, leaning in so they are both nose to nose. "And this has happened _more_ than once?"

Bracing herself, Marinette nods.

She feels the tickle of Alya's breath as she heaves a disbelieving sigh. "Damn girl."

"Don't you dare confront him about it." She glares at Alya, though she feels too weak to summon much heat into it.

"Of course I'm not going to confront him about it," Alya scoffs. "I'm going to confront Nino."

Marinette gasps and practically flies out of the bench to clamp a hand against her best friends mouth. " _No!_ Not Nino. _Especially_ not Nino. In fact you're not going to confront anyone at all. You are going to stay here with me, and we are going to enjoy our lunch talking about something else entirely."

"Something else, huh?" Alya questions slyly. "Then let's talk about what's gotten into you lately."

Marinette freezes mid-chew. She tries to channel Tikki's innocent, big blue eyes and aims it full force at Alya. "What are you talking about?"

Alya squints her eyes at her and chuckles. "Oh, you're good, Marinette, but you don't think you can slip by me that easily, do you? What happened to you the last few days? If I were to be honest, you looked like a girl who had had your heart broken to pieces." She shakes her head, dissatisfied. "But that can only happen with Adrien, and he's literally been treating you like a princess. So what gives?"

"Alya," -Marinette tries to invoke the pacifying tone of voice she had often used as Ladybug when she had to talk people out their hysterics -"nothing's wrong. I just wasn't in a good mood those few days."

Alya's bespectacled eyes narrow even further. "I don't buy that at all."

Internally, Marinette sighs; outwardly, she offers an innocent shrug. "I can't do anything about that."

"One day, Marinette Dupain-Cheng," Alya says, nudging her on the arm gently. "One day, I will find out all your secrets, then you'll know that you would have been better off not keeping them from me."

Marinette laughs. Her heart though, thuds.

There's too much that Alya can't know, too much at stake. She loves Alya too much expose her to danger, to have her explicitly targeted for the coercion of Ladybug's identity.

And then there's the question of Chat Noir, Ladybug's faithful partner; a secret she would rather keep to herself.

* * *

Adrien is crouched in the corner of the music room when she finds him later that evening, long after the bell had rung. He doesn't notice her at first; the kitten he plays with skitters over the floor, tiny claws batting the air, making to reach for the pigeon feather he wiggles just centimetres out of his reach.

She takes a moment to study the picture-worthy scene before inhaling deeply, steeling herself. Slowly, she steps through the door.

He's quick to scoop the kitten up in alarm at the sound of foreign footsteps, panicked eyes looking up, green as summer, as paint in an artist's palette. When he sees her face, his muscles loosen and a smile breaks loose.

"How long are you going to keep him?" she asks, hugging her arms, staring down the feline eyes of the adorably wretched thing peeking from his hand, raking curiously over her form.

Adrien opens his mouth, but his voice dies before it can be of much use. He settles for a shrug instead, feather poking between two fingers. His fingers are long and fine, she notices, made to span a piano. Curved against the kitten, they are gentle.

"I like him," he says instead, and instinctively, his fingers run over charcoal fur, expertly weaving between ears and eyes. "I was thinking on keeping him around for a while."

"He's cute," she admits, a little disgruntled that the admittance had been in part due to its resemblance to another cat on whom the eyes are deep enough to drown in. "But you'll get in trouble, won't you?"

She's unprepared for the smirk he flings her way with cavalier familiarity, the effect made even more potent by the dark gold lashes rimming the green, luminescent eyes.

"You _did_ say I should rebel once in awhile."

She smiles weakly.

"I brought some milk," she says, looking away. Adrien's eyes are distracting; dangerous, just like Chat's. "For you -um, I mean him. For you to feed it to him."

Inwardly, she grimaces. Chat's voice rings in her ears, silken: _Cat got your tongue, my Lady?_

One day- _one day-_ she _will_ get him out of her head.

"That's very kind of you," Adrien says, blessedly cutting across the train of thought. "Thanks, Marinette."

She shuffles closer and hands the small carton. Adrien takes it and his fine fingers immediately set to work, tearing open the top, producing a bowl in which he empties about a quarter of the liquid.

"I went on a bit of a scavenger hunt for the bowl," he admits to her undisguised curiosity. Then, quietly he adds, "Why don't you come here and sit? It must be pretty uncomfortable standing."

A little embarrassed, she moves over to his side and, self-consciously, sits. The room looks bigger from this vantage point, the floor more than just a little scuffed; lines score across the room from dragged chairs and light, pouring in, pick up dust motes scattered through the air like stars. She hears the rustle of clothes: Adrien, shifting in his seat, hunching his shoulders a little more; it's nothing like the artful slouches he perfects for the cameras, but he looks relaxed and comfortable.

"Don't feel so guilty," he says. His fingers are still tangled in fur, as though he finds anchorage in the kitten's small body. "I want to do this."

"I don't like my friends taking risks," Marinette admits, hugging her knees. "I really hate it when things happen to people because of me."

"It's not your fault," Adrien argues. He draws his hand away from the kitten and turns to face her. His eyes are steady. "In fact, if it weren't for you, he would've died in the cold."

Marinette laughs softly. "Yeah, I know." She holds out her fingers for the kitten to sniff, then slides her hand over his head. His fur is soft; no wonder Adrien adored it. "I guess I couldn't help thinking that I should've taken him home instead of you, considering how much trouble he could have gotten you in. I'm sure I could have gotten my parents around the idea with enough persuasion: doing a chore or two -or twenty."

Adrien matches her chuckle with a laugh.

"Sounds like a cinch," he teases.

"Why do you like him so much?" she asks, picking up the kitten to let him curl on her lap.

"He's soft. He's lonely." Absently, he reaches over to scratch him on the ear. "I can see a lot of myself in him, I suppose."

She watches his hands, the long fingers and the smooth nails. Adrien's handling of the cat is instinctive, and when he picks it up again, it curls comfortable in his hands, trusting his care.

"I can help you hide him, if you want," she blurts.

Adrien blinks. "Sorry?"

"I can take him," she clarifies. "If you ever need to hide him. If your week is busy or if your dad or Nathalie start getting suspicious, you can leave him with me and I'll take care of him for you."

She ignores the voice in her head whispering of Paris, of ladybugs and Kwamis; of duties and responsibilities that mustn't be neglected; of partners that need her as she did them. She tries to forget everything in the face of the boy and the kitten, the lost and lonely.

Adrien seems to be at a loss for words. "Well, I, uh-thank you, Marinette. That's very nice of you."

Marinette nods, a little bashful. The way Adrien looks at her warms her cheeks, all wide-eyed and enthralled.

The kitten squirms in his hands. It jerks him back to the present; with an embarrassed flush he reaches back and slips him into his hood.

"I think I'll keep him for tonight," he says, adjusting the hem and collar with a smile. "But I'll keep your offer in mind."

She nods. "Whatever suits you best."

* * *

"You seem a bit chipper today, Kitten," she says, during a short break on the ancient stones of Notre Dame.

Chat's arm is hooked to one of the pillars, the wind rough and blowing. His hair is a fine mist, his costume the shadow of Notre Dame itself, and the glowing green eyes draw her heart to her throat when they dance with moonlight and darkness.

"Do I?" he asks with a twist to his lips, teasing.

"You've been smiling all through the night," she states flatly. The gust against her back makes the fine hair behind her head stand; even in the suit, Paris is freezing in the night. "I can't say patrol has been all that exciting."

"It's interesting," he protests. "The mini aquarium we saw through one of the windows had the most colourful of fishes."

"Chat." She side-eyes him in exasperation.

"My Lady," he counters with the most infuriating smirk yet.

Ladybug sighs and wraps an arm around the pillar, leans her body around to look at him. They're standing about two pillars apart, and from this far, she can see the silhouette Chat casts upon the ancient stones. Handsome and wild and free, limb and body fluidly draped against a pillar, the scene is picturesque, flavoured with flyaway golden hair and emerald eyes whose glow prevails even in the darkest of nights.

"I take it something good happened to you today." She presses a cheek against the stone; it's cold and it keeps her heart in check.

He turns his head at her and smiles.

"Is it the girl?"

He leans around the pillar, matching her pose, tapered fingers splayed against the stone. "Am I that obvious?"

"I've known you for a long time," she mumbles through the cold. "I can tell."

He chuckles. "Then you can rest knowing that so far, you're the only one who knows."

Surprised, her lips part. "You haven't told her?"

He lifts his shoulders and shakes his head with a gentle smile.

"Why not?"

"Can't find the nerve to." He rests his head against the pillar; moonlight pools on his hair. Gold and silver splash onto the dour stone.

"I find that hard to believe." She studies him, more out of whim than true need; she already has his features memorised. "You have had the nerve to do many things most people would call crazy."

"Ah, but my Lady," he tilts his head her way, smiles with something akin to sorrow, "that's only when I'm Chat. My civilian self is not as bold."

"Really? I thought you were born this way."

He laughs. "No. You can say I'm quite… different without the mask."

Intrigued, she stares longer. "Different how?"

"Most people would say more reserved. I have to be many things for many people, but Chat Noir is who I want to be -who I love to be."

"Different personalities for different people." She understands him so well that her heart aches. "You know, Ladybug is just one side of me; she's not all that I am."

"They come with the mask," they both say, coincidentally -unintentionally -in unison.

She looks at Chat and he looks at her, then a smile breaks loose and so does laughter, wafting through soft moonlight.

"I never thought we'd share the same sentiments over the subject," she admits when the laughter dies. It's dark down there, just beyond the tips of her toes, but she has never been afraid of falling, trusting herself to keep her balance. Trusting Chat to catch her should all else fail.

"We're the defenders of Paris, but even heroes have secrets. Insecurities," he adds, despite looking completely at ease now in the obsidian leather suit and lethal in all senses.

 _I wish I can tell you everything_ , she thinks, scraping her nails against the pillar to keep her face straight. _But like you said, Chat, duty is duty. Ours is to Paris and each other, and no matter what, I can't lose you. The closer I get to knowing who you are, the closer you get to being hurt._

As though right on cue, he muses, "This is the closest we've gotten, I think, to discussing our civilian lives."

"Chat…" she starts, swimming through the choking guilt.

"I know," he cuts in gently, before she can say anything more. His eyes hold her still, even when there's too much space that holds them apart. "I know, Ladybug. I wouldn't risk it, too. I would have, once, but now, I won't." His grip on the pillar tightens. "It's too big a risk."

"Chat?"

"Hmm?"

She takes in a deep breath. "If it weren't for Hawk Moth, if it weren't for the danger, I would have told you. I would have told you everything."

Slowly, his face breaks into a gratified smile. "As I would you, my Lady."

"And Chat?" She gazes into the darkness, glad that it hid much of her face. "About the girl, I hope things work out between you and her."

"Thank you, my Lady." His eyes are like beacons; she can find them no matter what. "And you don't need to worry. Her heart is just like yours: pure and kind."


End file.
